Resident Project
by Kryal
Summary: Yamamoto had very good reasons for not sending the Madsen Hollow virus out for independent analysis. (Set in Vathara's Tatterdemalion universe.)
1. Reality Doesn't Come With Age Ratings

AN: Warning: this story is effectively the plot and characters of Resident Evil 2, set in the Project Tatterdemalion universe created by Vathara. I highly recommend reading those stories first, as you will enjoy this one much more with the background information already in place.

While chatting about stories with Vathara, it occurred to me that the Resident Evil universe would mesh very well with the Project-verse. Not least because, when you get down to it, survival horror tends to be about exploring humans at their best (and worst) under pressure. Not to mention, it's not hard at all to picture Lickers as a variant of Hollow.

…of course, when that came up, Vathara admitted that the Lickers had helped inspire the Hollows. Ah, recursive fandom, how we love thee.

Clearly, I don't own the Resident Evil franchise (if I did, I might have more time for writing stories…). Nor can I claim credit for the Project-verse setting – that goes to Vathara, who is generously allowing me to play in her sandbox.

Quick note: I'm not even trying to accurately reproduce the actual layout of the locations in RE2 (although there are a few areas with iconic imagery that survived intact), or the frankly ridiculous system of secret keys and puzzles. As a game, hunt-the-gadget-to-open-the-door works. For a narrative, they're pointless! (Although the characters just _had_ to get in some snark about it anyway.)

Amusingly, it did not occur to me until just this weekend that the timing of finishing the first draft of this story meant that I would be posting the first chapter just in time for Halloween. Believe it or not, that was a complete coincidence…

WARNING: Expect levels of violence and gore consistent with the Resident Evil setting...

* * *

 **CHAPTER ONE**

 **Reality Doesn't Come With Age Ratings**

* * *

The impact nearly knocked him off his feet.

A startled cry strangled in his throat, Leon staggered, dropping his useless gun to the floor as he fought to regain his balance under rasping, snapping, biting _weight_ -

Dimly, he heard cloth give way, just as a white-hot rush of pain exploded from his shoulder.

 _No!_

Giving up on balance, he reached back, hands closing on cloth and hair and flesh that _gave_ under his fingers in a way he didn't want to think too hard about – and _dropped_ , one knee hitting the floor as he twisted forward, using his hold and the momentum of the drop to fling his attacker forward and over his shoulder. For one horrible moment, his vision was covered in red and white lights, and he thought he heard something in his shoulder tearing that wasn't cloth…

But no matter how much strength was behind it, a human jaw wasn't _designed_ to bite upside down, and torsion and momentum finally won out, teeth tearing loose as a blue-jacketed, bloody figure slammed down onto the floor.

Breath rattling in his throat, Leon forced himself up onto his feet again as his opponent scrabbled awkwardly at the floor, trying clumsily to flip itself over even as it reached out to grab at his leg, dead white eyes staring.

Leon kicked it loose, and then brought his reinforced boot down with all the weight and momentum he could put behind it, right between those eyes.

…he wasn't going to think about the sound it made. But a moment later, the grasping limbs went slack, other than the occasional strange, shuddering _twitches_ that went on far too long.

Somewhere nearby, a clock began to chime the hour.

Leon slowly stepped back, trying to ignore the way his boot _slipped_ just a little on the not-that-polished floor, and picked up the dropped handgun again, checking it over out of habit as the chimes rang.

And almost laughed when they stopped.

 _You've got to be kidding. Ten o'clock? Isn't there a law somewhere that says it always has to be midnight, or the witching hour? Come on, even the movies know that much._

Not that he'd ever been much of a fan of horror movies. Cops generally didn't tend to fare very… well in them…

As if that thought were the trigger, the dam of shock broke in a wave of heart-in-throat horror.

 _It bit me, it_ bit _me, I'm infected,_ God _…_

For a second, his hands tightened on the pistol, hard enough to send a sharp ache through the bones of his fingers. Then Leon drew in a slow breath, carefully checked the weapon again, and began to reload it, refusing to let his hands shake as he checked the bullet chamber to make sure it was full.

Not that it really mattered. He only needed one.

God. He _didn't_ want to do this.

 _Do you want Claire to have to shoot a zombie with your face?_ Thinning his lips, he clicked the bullet chamber shut. Because she _would_ get here eventually. The girl he'd met in the street was tough-minded, fast on her feet, quick on the uptake, and if she was Chris Redfield's sister… well. He'd read up on the S.T.A.R.S. team when he'd gotten word that he'd been accepted on the force at Raccoon City. Quincy talents tended to run in families. She might well be better armed than it seemed.

And even if she weren't – she clearly knew some self-defense moves, had one hell of a nice wrist-snap in her knife throws, and had handled the spare gun he'd passed her with the experience of someone who regularly spent time on the shooting range. She'd make it. He _had_ to believe that.

But even so… it didn't matter how good you were. See a face you _knew_ at the other end of your gun, and you'd hesitate. If only for a second. Dealing with zombies, that second could be fatal. He _refused_ to have that on his conscience.

 _At least this way's faster than getting eaten alive,_ he thought, almost laughing – which he _knew_ was the stress talking. Drawing in a deep breath, he raised the gun-

Somewhere nearby, someone sniffled.

It was probably a good thing that it wasn't _actually_ physically possible to shoot the whole of the universe a dirty look. If it were, the universe might have keeled over dead at the look on Leon's face, and then where would they be?

 _Seriously?_ Seriously? _I spend over an hour combing through this place, and a survivor finally turns up_ now _?_

Damn. Now he really understood the look on Marvin's face when he'd come through the office door. Surprise, _relief_ at seeing another living face, anger and dread because he _knew_ what was coming, and now someone else was in danger because of it…

Wait.

Slowly, Leon lowered the gun again, thinking.

Marvin's bite… hadn't been new. At the very least, he'd been bitten, gotten away, locked himself in the office – and there still had been time for the zombies to become more or less passive again before Leon had arrived. Five minutes, he'd guess, at the minimum.

 _And there was enough time for me to make a circuit of the north wing of the station and come back before he turned. That had to have been… what, half an hour?_

Which meant he had a little time, at least. And… from the look of things, Marvin had felt the change coming. He'd have warning before he started craving brains or whatever it was that made these things attack people.

 _Survivors first._

In the meantime… gritting his teeth, he loosened his gun harness and pulled the collar of his shirt away from the bite, wincing as threads came out of the wound, and then carefully shrugged off the small pack he'd picked up on his brief run through the autopsy room. And hadn't _that_ been fun, darting through as he wondered which corpses would stay dead and which ones would get up and give chase. But it was one of those fun ironies of the universe – the room where the dead bodies went was where the best first aid kit was stashed.

He'd strapped a couple bottles of water to the side of the kit with duct tape. The plan had been to use them for drinking, because he did _not_ trust the tap water in a city where all of the inhabitants had somehow _turned into zombies_ , but… Twisting the cap off, he gritted his teeth and used the water to wash the bite out, then quickly applied the antiseptic and antibacterial sprays. Who knew – maybe they'd help. For a moment, he eyed the spray-on wound sealant – but he'd gotten lucky. When the throw had pried the zombie's teeth loose, it _hadn't_ taken a chunk of his shoulder with it. The flesh and muscle was torn, not _missing_. It would probably stop bleeding on its own.

And frankly, the longer the bleeding could wash out the infection, the longer he'd have before he turned. He hoped.

Quickly draining the mouthful or two of water left in the bottle, Leon set the empty plastic aside and carefully pulled his shirt and harness back over his shoulder, wincing a bit as he slung the first aid kit over his shoulder again.

Then he scrambled to his feet and went looking for the source of the crying.

Whoever it was, they were trying to be quiet, which showed good sense. Even so, after a few moments, he followed the soft hiccups to the back of the room, where the four zombies now lying slumped and almost-twitching on the floor had been gathered when he'd first eased the door open. He'd thought he'd managed to take them all down, but it had used up his bullets, and then when he tried to reload one that hadn't been quite dead had…

 _Don't think about it now. Done is done. Do what you can while you still can._

Once he came around the heavy desk, he saw that a grate had been wrenched off of an old vent. Which was impressive, because from the holes around the mouth, it had been bolted in.

 _Desperation can drive people to pull off some pretty impressive stuff_ _… huh. Not a lot of space down there._ And the crying, soft as it was, was fairly high-pitched… a kid?

Carefully, Leon crouched by the opening, positioning himself so that the light from the room would show on his face as well as let him see inside. "Hey there. It's okay, they're gone now…"

He blinked.

 _Huh. That's… different_.

Which, some part of his mind was half-hysterically babbling, was _not_ exactly a normal reaction to a little kid who'd wrapped herself in _pale blonde wriggly tentacles that seemed to be coming out of her back._

On the other hand… the minute she saw him, the kid _squeaked_ , edging back a little deeper into the vent even though it was clear she'd gone about as far as she could fit, the… tentacles… wrapping tighter around her as she curled up in the very back. And the big blue eyes staring wide-eyed back at him were sane, and _alive_. Which was definitely an improvement on the alternative.

After a long moment, the kid gulped hard and asked, in a tiny voice, "Are you going to shoot me?"

Leon settled back on his heels a bit more, so that the light would show his face clearly, and thought fast. "Why would I do that?" he asked, stalling.

That defensive little ball tightened up even more. And Leon was feeling more confident in tagging the kid as a _she_ , now, because he was pretty sure that no boy would be going around with pink-highlighted sneakers and ruffled socks, although the pixie-short hair was poking out in all directions, as though she'd gotten slimed and hadn't had time to wash it off. "…'cause that's what cops _do_ to monsters," she mumbled.

Well. Now Leon _did_ want to shoot someone. Specifically, whatever idiot had said the M-word to a scared kid.

Then again… it was hard to tell through the dust-smears and tear tracks, but he'd put the kid somewhere around nine or ten. Plenty old enough to have seen a couple of movies that _technically_ were rated over her age limit at Halloween sleepovers. And certainly old enough to realize that _blonde fuzzy tentacles_ were not exactly human-standard.

"Hmmm." He let her _see_ him thinking that over, before countering with, "I don't know. Are you going to try to eat me?"

An adorable button nose immediately wrinkled up in undisguised disgust. " _Ewww_!"

He did his best not to grin. "Well, that answers that then. You're not a monster, so no, I'm not going to shoot you." Now he _did_ smile, doing his best to make it warm and friendly. "My name's Leon. What's yours?"

She blinked, starting to relax a little – then tensed again. "…Sherry," she said. "Sherry… Birkin."

Huh. Birkin. Was that a name he should know?

 _Worry about it later._ "Nice to meet you, Sherry," he said, extending a hand – although carefully keeping it relaxed, reaching into the vent just far enough that she could reach back if she wanted, but not enough that it would look like he was trying to grab her. "You want to come out of there?"

For a moment, she looked blankly at his hand. Then…

Leon honestly wasn't sure which of them was more startled, when she started to reach out to take his hand – and a blonde-fuzzed tentacle got there first.

 _Don't flinch. Do_ not _flinch_ , he told himself firmly, as the tip wrapped carefully around his wrist. Gently, he tugged, more to anchor Sherry as she pulled herself forward than trying to pull her himself. The tentacle was probably less sensitive than, say, a cat's tail, but odds were that getting yanked by one would still not be very fun. For _either_ of them, given the way the other three were latching onto what looked like solid metal to help brace Sherry as she began to clamber out.

He did let go and step back a bit once she actually got to the opening of the vent, letting her take her time to catch a breath and brace herself before emerging from her safe hiding spot and getting to her feet, the pale fluff of accumulated dust smudged all over her clothes and face and hair proving that someone hadn't been cleaning out the vents properly. Her whole face sort of _twitched_ , clearly fighting the urge to sneeze – and then blue eyes went huge as the movement brought her attention to the body sprawled on the floor beside the desk.

"D…Did you…?" she asked, voice shaking a bit. Although oddly, she backed away from the body and _toward_ him.

"Well, yeah," he admitted bluntly, not bothering to hide the gun in his hand, although he was careful to keep it clearly pointed away from her, at the ground. "When something tries to eat me, I _do_ shoot it."

Not exactly much point in hiding that, after all. She'd have heard him shooting the zombies earlier. And if he was going to get her out of here, she'd see him shooting more. Reality didn't exactly come with age ratings.

But to his surprise, rather than quailing, Sherry simply seemed to think about that for a moment – and then her eyes narrowed. " _Good!_ " she said fiercely.

Bit more bloodthirsty than he'd expected from a scared kid. Good for her. So long as you didn't let it control you, anger and determination did a lot more for your survival chances than terror. Though he had to grant that Sherry had found a good bolthole to wait out the shakes, even if she'd ended up cornered…

Huh. Carefully, Leon dropped to one knee, so he could look Sherry squarely in the eyes without bending over. "Sherry – do you know your way around here?"

She hesitated. "Um… kind of?" she said tentatively. "We visited on a school trip last year…"

"Do you know where the S.T.A.R.S. office is?" he asked. After all, if Claire was really looking for her brother, that would be the first place she'd go, making it the most likely place to find her. _I'll meet you at the station_ had seemed all well and good when they were separated by a massive burning shuttle; he'd kind of underestimated just how _insanely complicated_ the station actually was.

At least the dampeners on the fusion engines in the runaway cargo shuttle and their ill-fated car had worked, or… well, there wouldn't have been much of a _them_ left, after the crash. Or a street. Or a station.

Or the better part of the city, actually.

Sherry's brow furrowed. "Um… I _think_ that's upstairs?" she offered, after a moment of concentration.

Good. _Very_ good. The zombies might be determined, but simple obstacles gave them trouble. They didn't seem to really get the whole idea of picking up your feet to climb. Not that he thought the upper floor would be zombie-free – but hopefully there would be less of them, and less danger of more showing up.

And he was pretty sure he'd seen a staircase at the end of the other hallway. But to get there…

"Sherry, I need you to do two things for me."

She hesitated. "What?"

"Once we leave here – I need you to stay as close behind me as you can. That's not going to be easy," he warned, before she could say anything in response. "There are a lot of zombies out there. We may have to run. I'll try to warn you before I do, but my attention's going to be on the zombies. I need to be able to trust that you'll stay with me."

Sherry swallowed hard, but nodded. "Okay."

Leon grinned at her. "Good. The other thing I need you to do is keep your eyes open. Try to watch to the sides, and behind us if you can. Let me know if you see _anything_ that looks dangerous that you think I might not have seen."

Sherry's nod was much more energetic this time. "Okay!"

"All right then." Leon straightened, double-checking that the safety on his gun was off.

He paused at the door, listening intently for any sound of shuffling feet or the groan of air forced through non-functioning lungs, and then risked glancing up and down the hallway.

Clear for now. Good. Taking a deep breath, he pulled back to glance at where Sherry had attached herself to his shadow. "Okay. Now – what's your job?"

"Stay close to you, and look out for bad things you don't see," Sherry replied, her voice low and fiercely earnest, without even a hint of eyeroll at being asked to repeat what he'd told her. She was taking this seriously, then. Good.

Leon nodded. "Right," he said, voice equally quiet, and allowed himself one slow breath to try and steady his heart, trying not to think too hard about the throbbing in his shoulder. Or wondering if it had gotten worse in the time it had taken to coax Sherry out. He'd committed himself. "Okay. Here we go."

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

There was one blessing in this mess. So far as Leon could tell, the zombies weren't very mobile. They didn't wander around the station; the areas he'd cleared in his earlier search were still clear, giving the two of them a relatively safe path around the lower floor.

At least, this far.

Sherry hovering so close behind him that he could feel her breathing, Leon carefully eased his way to the corner and glanced down the hallway. He'd come this far earlier, when he'd glimpsed the stairs leading to the second floor through the half-open door at the far end of the hall, but he'd decided to finish his sweep of the accessible areas on the ground level first. Especially since he didn't quite trust the look of those barricaded windows along the outer wall.

Glancing down at the shards gleaming pale on the old carpet in the dim half-light, Leon frowned a bit. His boots were designed to handle things like that, but Sherry's sneakers were, while not exactly cheap, designed for an active child who did a lot of running and would soon outgrow them. The soles _should_ be thick enough to protect her, but…

"Watch out for the glass," he murmured, stepping into the hallway. "Let's stick to the inner wall if we can…"

 _Something shattering – sound of bodies impacting stone and wood – groaning –_ movement _…!_

" _Shi-!_ " he choked, back hitting the inner wall even as he pulled Sherry with him, barely hearing her startled _yeek!_ , half-strangled as if she'd tried to shriek only to realize there was no air in her lungs. All of his attention was on the grasping, too-pallid arms scrabbling at the air only a few inches away from his face.

"It's okay. It's okay. It's okay," he managed to choke out, very aware that he was talking as much to himself as to Sherry, if not more. "It looks like the barricades are holding." _For now_ , he didn't add. The wooden planks hastily nailed against the broken windows were heavy and solid – but they'd definitely been a rush job, as evidenced by the gaps between the slats that the zombies had shoved their arms through. Through smaller gaps, he could see gaping mouths, clouded eyes…

With a shudder, he made himself look away from those dead stares to assess the situation as a whole. A moment later, he carefully shook his shoulders out, forcing them to relax just a bit. "It's okay," he said again, with more confidence this time. "So long as we stay close to this wall, they can't reach us."

"You're not going to shoot them?" Sherry asked in a small voice, watching the grasping fingers clawing at the air intently. Leon suspected that any zombie that tried to grab her would find _itself_ bitten.

"I don't have that much ammunition, and right now they can't get to us," he told her, careful to keep his voice low. He was almost certain that there were more zombies at the foot of the stairs; he needed to save his ammo for that. And, hopefully, preserve the element of surprise. Gunfire was _sure_ to draw their attention, and he did not want to fight here, where he'd have to keep one eye on the windows at all times.

 _And if I ever find the_ genius _who decided a fancy former art museum with narrow hallways was a good choice for a police station, there are going to be_ words _,_ he thought darkly.

At least the hallway was _short_ as well as narrow. Better, there was an area before the door at the end with no windows, meaning that at least he didn't have to worry about getting grabbed as he eased his way to the half-open door and peered through.

Hm. A short hall leading to open space, faced by a large window – intact, thankfully, and even more thankfully with the shades drawn, because Leon didn't think for a moment that glass was going to stop the horde they'd just eeked past if they saw targets moving inside – with a fairly broad staircase running up one side, and what looked like a hallway continuing back deeper into the building in the same direction on the other. No zombies in the part of the hall near the door, at least, but he could make out two swaying on their feet at the bottom of the stairs. Not looking their way, thankfully, but an obstacle they'd have to get past. He couldn't see down the ground-level hallway any farther than the corner, but odds were pretty good that there were at least one or two more zombies down there, if not more.

That made for at least two, maybe four or more zombies. It generally took three shots to take one down, and even then only temporarily. His gun held twelve bullets. Two or three zombies were manageable – but any more, and things could get very dicey, depending on how fast he could reload. As the throbbing in his shoulder painfully proved.

More importantly, he didn't know what was at the top of those stairs – and there was that window to think about.

Pursing his lips slightly, Leon risked easing the door just a little farther open, to get a better look at the layout. Then he backed away from the door – careful to stay glued to the wall and away from those grabbing hands – and sank down onto his heels, waving Sherry closer.

"This next part is going to get a little tricky," he breathed, careful to keep his voice as low as he could. "Stay close, and when I say run, then run with me – but _wait_ until I tell you to run."

Sherry nodded, fingers clenching and unclenching in little fists, even as her eyes studiously scanned the hallway behind them and watched the arms reaching through the slats, plainly taking her job as rearguard deadly seriously.

Leon smiled at her, although he knew the expression betrayed his own tension. After quickly double-checking that the safety on his gun was off and the gun was fully loaded – which he already knew it was, but the momentary ritual had a calming effect and he wasn't going to turn that down – he opened the door and stepped into the hallway.

The two zombies at the foot of the stairs didn't notice them until he and Sherry were more than halfway to where their side hall opened into the wider hallway. Both pivoted, starting towards the two of them with that strange, mindless _moaning_ sound that raised the hair on the back of Leon's neck. Leon forced himself to hold a steady pace until he reached the corner.

A quick glance showed three more zombies near the door at the far end of the hall leading deeper – a potential problem, but too far to be an immediate threat. Trying to keep his breathing steady, Leon turned his attention back to the two zombies shambling closer. Seven steps away. Six, and the first of them was safely away from the foot of the stairs, but the other one was a little farther back…

Sherry's tentacles were twitching as she stared wide-eyed at the approaching zombies. "Leon…?"

 _Wait for it._

Five steps away. Four. Three, and he saw a tell-tale twitch in the lead zombie that meant it was about to lunge…

" _Run_ ," he said fiercely, dodging to the left, just ahead of lunging jaws and grasping hands, and broke into a jog as he circled the outer edge of the room.

He'd thought he'd have to hold his pace back a bit to correct for Sherry's shorter legs – but to his surprise, she kept pace easily, actually darting ahead of him as they reached the stairs just before the zombie in the rear could reverse direction.

"Sherry, wait!" Leon called, taking the stairs two at a time until he was halfway up, as the girl rushed up ahead of them. "We don't know what's…"

" _Yeep!_ "

Sherry threw herself backwards as she reached the top of the stairs, teetering for a dangerous moment on the edge – and then tumbled back, just before reaching hands would have latched onto her. Leon tensed, starting to lunge in an attempt to catch her before she broke her neck on the stairs – but the blonde tentacles whipped out, clutching at the railings and stopping her fall. She still hit the rail hard enough that Leon heard the breath _whoof_ out of her lungs, but she was safe for the moment-

Gritting his teeth, Leon took half a moment to steady his stance on the stairs halfway up, blocking out the moaning below and _everything_ except the zombie looming shuffling forward at the top of the steps, about to fall on the kid.

 _Forget the head._ His aim was good, but not that good, and he didn't trust his hands not to shake from pure adrenaline. _Aim for the center of mass, you only need to get it_ down _…_

Three sharp shots, as fast as he could get them off. The zombie jerked once, twice, teetered at the edge of the stairs – and on the third shot, toppled back.

Sherry was already starting to pull herself back up onto her feet, the tentacles gripping the smooth wood of the banister easily and anchoring her until she'd gotten her feet back from under her. She was pale, but didn't seem hurt, so Leon climbed up past her until he cleared the top of the steps and found the fallen zombie, which was already starting to pull itself back up.

Carefully, Leon lined up the gun with its head, and pulled the trigger.

Once he was sure that the shot had been good and the zombie really was down permanently this time, Leon let out a shaky breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding. "You okay?" he asked, taking in what he could see of the second level in a quick glance before turning back to Sherry. Worn wooden floor, hallway, doors closed, no zombies in sight – as secure as they could get for now.

"Sorry," Sherry managed. "Sorry, sorry, you _said_ to stay behind you and I thought I was and then I was at the top and it surprised me…"

Huh. Adrenaline? That could certainly explain it. On the other hand, Sherry acted like those tentacles were pretty new – she frowned at them for several moments before apparently figuring out how to get them to let go of the banister so she could join him at the top of the stairs. It wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that there were less obvious changes to her physiology. A change in her running speed… well, it wasn't outside the realm of possibility, he supposed.

 _Other than it being supposedly impossible… Oh well. If it gives her an edge, I'm not going to complain._ "It happens," Leon said, moving so that she didn't have to walk right past the remains of the zombie's head.

…Hm. Most of the zombies he'd fought in here had been wearing office uniforms – as though they hadn't had time to gear up before it was too late. Which had some unsettling implications about how fast this whole thing had hit, and how little warning people had had, and he was doubly determined not to eat or drink _anything_ that wasn't sealed now. But this guy had been suited up, although his holster was empty and Leon didn't see his pistol anywhere. So he might have…

With a wince and a muttered apology to the corpse, Leon began quickly rummaging through the pockets of the tac vest, and… score. Two extra clips of ammunition.

Straightening, he took a moment to assess the situation in the hall below. The five zombies that had been in the area below had all collected at the foot of the stairs, jostling each other in a macabre sort of mosh pit.

The fact that he had to suppress a snicker at the thought probably said more about his level of stress than any actual amusement quotient.

Setting the thought aside, he considered his options briefly. Strategically, there was no reason to bother with the zombies at this point. Even as he watched, one staggered and fell, falling across the steps when it failed to realize that it had to actually pick its feet up. Even if they somehow managed to climb over each other, it would likely be at least an hour before they managed to make it up the stairs. There was no reason to waste his ammunition.

Except that Claire might still be behind them – which meant she might have to climb these stairs herself. And five zombies were a lot harder to dodge around than two…

"Something's _out_ there!"

Startled, he turned. Sherry was staring wide-eyed at the window, reflexively dropped down in a crouch either to try to hide herself or brace for movement. The top pair of her tentacles were arched up, over her shoulders, as if ready to snap forward if something came at her, while the lower pair were slowly twining back and forth, almost like snakes tasting the air.

Leon stepped back, positioning himself so that he could still watch the hallway from the corner of his eye as he glanced out the window. Nothing but darkness and the reflection of the hallway lights on glass; there was no way he'd be able to see much outside unless he turned off the lights.

 _Meaning, if she saw something, it had to have been close enough for the light from the window to reach it…_ Not a happy thought. Not at _all_.

"Something?" he asked.

Sherry swallowed, carefully straightening up and moving a step or two towards him – although, Leon noted, not so close that he'd be in the way of those tentacles. Interesting. It was almost as if she didn't _consciously_ know what to do with them, but her _subconscious_ was managing just fine. "I didn't see much," she admitted nervously. "Just – something moved, and by the time I looked up it was gone…"

"A zombie?" he asked. Although he doubted it. They were on the second floor. And if it turned out that the zombies could scale walls when they couldn't even manage to walk up a staircase, then he was complaining to the management.

Sherry shook her head. "I… don't think so," she said uneasily. "It was sort of… crawling across the window." Her hands made a vague wriggly-scrabbling sort of movement. "Kind of like a lizard?"

Lovely. So they had some kind of unknown outside that _could_ scale walls – and from the sound of it, moved pretty quickly. Given the way the rest of the day was going, Leon wasn't inclined to bet on it being a friendly.

 _Don't jump to conclusions. Sherry could probably manage some impressive climbing tricks herself._ He couldn't assume everything was unfriendly. That way lay paranoia, and shooting at everything that moved. Not exactly a good state of mind for locating survivors.

Still. He was going to hope _very hard_ that whatever was outside would decide to _stay_ outside.

"Keep an eye on that window," he told her quietly. "And watch the doors as we pass them." Zombies couldn't get through a closed door except by brute force, so far as he could tell – but that was assuming that all the doors were latched shut.

He was watching the doors himself, just in case one of them decided to burst open as they came close. Which was part of why it wasn't until they were halfway down the hall, moving as quietly as they could, that he noticed the signboard reading _SPECIAL TACTICS AND RESCUE SERVICE_ over one of them.

He allowed himself a sigh of relief – although he was careful not to relax. They didn't know what was inside, after all.

With a few hand signals, slowed to make sure she understood them, Leon waved Sherry to tuck herself against the wall on the handle side of the door, while he positioned himself on the hinged side. Then he reached out, and, very carefully, tested the latch.

 _Huh. It's not locked_. That was odd.

But he wasn't going to complain about not needing to hunt down the key, either. Closing his eyes for a moment, Leon drew in a slow breath, held it, and let it out again – then, opening his eyes, he threw the door open and stepped inside, gun raised.

Office. Two freestanding work desks, a larger desk against the wall, all of them barely visible under stacks of paper – and that was _odd_ , in an age where everything was digitized on the terminals installed, two at each desk except for the one at the head of the room. Lockers along the side wall, a holographic map of the city along another, and the S.T.A.R.S. emblem on the wall behind the big desk, along with a framed photograph, old-style, of what had to be the team members-

Nothing moved.

Slowly, he lowered the gun, frowning slightly. But a second scan of the room showed no bodies hidden under the mess, no blood blotting out the ink on handwritten papers scattered across the small corridor between the desks and the wall, although someone had clearly stepped on them, by the crinkles and the road-dirt-brown tread marks. Which was _odd_.

 _The door was closed. There's no sign of a fight. Why is this place such a mess?_

First things first. "All clear, Sherry," he said – still quiet, but not actively trying to keep his voice low anymore. "Come on in – and close the door behind you."

Which raised the hair on the back of his neck a little; there was just the one door, and no windows. If something happened, they were boxed in. But on the other hand, that meant they had a relatively defensible position. And he wanted to look around a little.

 _Why would someone trash the S.T.A.R.S. office? These guys were the cream of the crop, everyone looked up to them._ Heck, S.T.A.R.S. was half the reason he'd applied for the Raccoon City opening after graduating from the Academy. The other half being the string of odd murders and disappearances that S.T.A.R.S. had been investigating…

Well. Apparently the culprits for those had been found. In the worst way possible.

 _Wait. This place isn't just trashed. It almost looks like someone was searching it._ Someone in a tearing hurry, by the look of things – and someone who didn't care if anyone noticed. And not one of the S.T.A.R.S. members, judging by the way the drawers from the desks had been hauled straight out, the contents dumped on the floor without any regard for where they'd fall. Whoever had done this apparently hadn't been very familiar with the S.T.A.R.S. filing system… or thought that what they were looking for would be hidden.

 _This can't have been any kind of official investigation, it's too chaotic._ So… what, then? Survivors hoping that S.T.A.R.S. might have gathered some sort of clues that would help them survive the zombies?

 _Or someone who had something to hide?_

Leon bit down a shiver, not liking the direction his thoughts were going at all. At the same time, he couldn't seem to shake the uneasy suspicion, either.

 _They had time to barricade those windows downstairs. Marvin wasn't on his feet when I got here, but he wasn't… well, he was still alive. He can't have been the only one to hold out. Didn't_ anyone _radio Spaceport City? If only to say they had a crisis and people needed to be kept out?_

Okay, granted, _we're being overrun by zombies_ might have been dismissed as a prank call. But someone should at least have _investigated_ , and kept people from coming in. Raccoon City was built entirely around one massive bio- and med-tech company, Umbrella. There should have been codes to indicate a biohazard outbreak, at the very least. To which the first logical response would be _minimize exposure_. And yet, he'd driven right into town without any indication that there was trouble until he was already in.

 _But that doesn't make any sense. We're talking about_ zombies _here. Why would anyone_ want _more people to walk into this mess…?_

Behind him, the latch on the door turned with a _click_. Leon whirled, gun already raised-

And found himself sighting down the barrel of another police-issue handgun, blue eyes framed by strands of red-brown hair escaped from a high ponytail focused and determined behind it.

Then blinking in undisguised surprise and relief, as Claire lowered her gun at the same moment Leon brought his down. "Leon!"

His relief probably was equally obvious. "Hey there," he said, grinning at her. "Glad to see you're still in one piece." Smudged with soot and dust – she must have had to get past a fire, probably from the explosion earlier – and a splash of gore along one cheek and splattered across the front of her coat where she'd apparently had a close call, but no injuries he could see.

Shoulder aching – and he didn't know if it was worse, or if it was just his own nerves – Leon allowed himself an inner sigh of relief. _Thank goodness_.

"I'm fine," Claire confirmed, stepping inside and closing the door behind her. "Have you found anything? I used the fire escape to get in on the second floor, but I haven't found anyone still alive…" She blinked. "Oh. Hi there. Who're you?"

Blinking, Leon looked down. Sherry had glued herself to the back of his legs, peeking out just enough to look at Claire. "This is Sherry Birkin," he said. "I met her downstairs."

"Sherry? That's a pretty name." Claire dropped down to a crouch, smiling brightly at the girl. "My name's Claire. Claire Redfield."

"…Hi," Sherry said tentatively, edging out a little farther, and Leon's mind blanked, because how was he supposed to explain _tentacles_ to Claire when he didn't even get it himself…

And by the way Claire had just stiffened, he was out of time to do any explaining anyway.

Sherry flinched slightly, almost drawing back behind his leg again – but then, to Leon's surprise, she drew in a deep breath and raised her chin bravely. "Leon said I'm not a monster unless I try to eat people," she declared.

Claire blinked, eyes flickering up to meet Leon's for just a moment, before her mouth unexpectedly curved in a wry smile. "Well, Leon's a pretty smart guy," she agreed, meeting Sherry's eyes easily. Then she tilted her head to the side. "Besides, my brother says that biting people should always be your last resort. You never know where they've been. Gross!"

Sherry blinked back at that, and then began to giggle. "Yeah. Ick!"

Claire smiled at her a moment longer, then shifted her gaze to Leon. "My brother…"

He shook his head, then nodded at the mess in the room. "It's only a guess, but I think S.T.A.R.S. left before whatever caused all this went down," he said.

"Great. Now I have to start all over again." Claire's tone was a strange mix of frustrated and desperately relieved. Leon could sympathize. This whole mess had been bad enough for him, and he didn't actually _know_ anyone in Raccoon City.

He looked over the mess, thinking. "It looks like they were investigating something," he said thoughtfully. "If we can figure out what it was…"

Claire's eyes brightened. "Then maybe we can figure out where they went!"

Leon nodded. "Other than that, we don't have any reason to stay here any longer than we absolutely have to," he added, hardening his voice. "You stay here with Sherry, see if there's anything you can make of this. I'm going to sweep the rest of the station, make sure there aren't any other survivors. If I find any, I'll send them to you. After that, we need to grab what we can and get _out_ of this place."

Claire scowled. "We should go together," she insisted. "Splitting up if we don't have to is a bad idea. You're a _cop_ , you should know that."

"Claire…" Bracing himself, Leon shifted a bit, and pulled the strap of his makeshift pack aside so she could see his bloodied shoulder.

She went white. "You're…"

"Best guess, I've got fifteen to thirty minutes left," he said quietly, trying to soften the blow with a small smile. "Might as well use it while I can."

Claire swallowed, blinking just a little too rapidly. "…Okay," she whispered.

Reaching back, Leon unclipped one of two small cases from his belt. He'd found them searching the office below, and picked them up just in case – he was glad he had, now. "Here. You know how to use these?"

Tugging the small handheld device from the case, Claire frowned slightly, eyes still too bright but her jaw set stubbornly. "Short-wave radio? Why not use the satellite comms?"

Leon hesitated for just a moment, which was probably a moment too long, judging by the way Claire's eyes narrowed. "I think we're better off sticking to short-range communications if we can," he said carefully. After all, _something_ had prevented word from getting out to the spaceport that things had gone seriously wrong here. He didn't know if it was coincidence, damage, or something darker, but he wasn't inclined to take chances.

Besides, it was part of basic disaster protocol: don't jam up the lines with non-critical calls in a crisis situation, the authorities would need them open.

 _Not that there seem to be many of those left._

"I'll try to contact you regularly," he said. "Let me know if you find something, or if you decide you need to shift locations." He hesitated. "If I can… I'll try to let you know, when I think my time's up."

The muscle of Claire's jaw bunched and then relaxed, as if she'd bitten back words that she knew weren't going to help. "And if you can't?" she asked.

Leon made himself grin at her. "Just try not to look any of the zombies in the face," he suggested. "I mean, they're _ugly_."

…and if he stalled any longer, he was going to lose his nerve completely. He had a job to do, might as well get started on _doing_ it. Stepping past Claire, he opened the door and stepped back out into the hallway.

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

 _This isn't fair. This just isn't_ fair _._

Then again, that was why Chris had gone for special forces. Because the universe didn't _care_ about fair, not really. If there was going to be any fairness in the world, then humans would have to fight for it and defend it.

"…Is Leon going to be okay?" Sherry asked, her tentacles twitching like the tail of an upset cat.

Reflexively, Claire opened her mouth to say something reassuring – and then closed it again. Because Sherry definitely wasn't stupid, and by the tremble in her lip and the way her hands were fisted by her side, she already had a pretty good guess as to the real answer anyway.

The girl had made it this far. Lying wasn't going to help, and it… well. It wouldn't be fair. To either of them.

"I don't know, honey," Claire admitted. "But… probably not."

Sherry's face crumpled slightly, lower lip wobbling, but she simply nodded. "…Thank you," she whispered, and shivered.

Which might not be nerves alone, Claire belatedly realized. Sherry was wearing a basic schoolgirl's uniform, but it clearly hadn't been designed to accommodate tentacles, and with the things… waving around like that… it had rucked the back of her shirt up almost all the way to her shoulders. It wasn't _cold_ in here, exactly, but it wasn't precisely warm either.

Claire beckoned the girl over. "Here. Let's see if we can't make that shirt a little more comfortable for you," she suggested. Sherry hesitated, but obligingly turned around – although she stiffened a bit when Claire pulled out the knife her brother had given her.

Fixing the shirt was, luckily, pretty simple – Claire carefully cut a broad I-figure in the back, so that the two panels would fold out and let the tentacles through. It was only a temporary fix – for one thing, there wasn't exactly a hem, so the cloth was going to fray quickly. But it should last long enough for them to get out, and this way Sherry's tentacles weren't bound up under cloth. And the scarf of the uniform was long enough in the back to help cover the modifications a bit.

It also helped Claire clear her head a bit, so that dismay and horror and grief could give way to cold, bright _anger_.

 _Leon doesn't think all this was an accident._

Oh, he hadn't _said_ that in so many words, but reading between the lines it was pretty obvious.

 _Someone_ did _this. And when I find who, they will die_ slowly _,_ she thought viciously, climbing to her feet and sheathing her knife again. _Death of a thousand papercuts. From thirty tons of red tape. Inflicted by_ government lawyers _._

…There was a reason her family had encouraged Claire to finish college before she made _any_ decisions about whether she would follow Chris into special forces. When her blood was up, she could get a bit… vindictive.

Although right now, she was more worried about her own odds of death by papercut, given the absolute storm of papers filling the room. How was she supposed to even _start_?

 _Wait_.

Frowning, she snagged the first page off the top of the nearest pile, nearly toppling the whole thing when it turned out to be attached to a thick sheaf. A quick skim told her it was information on a large mansion – she eyed the picture and almost snickered. Seriously? That thing looked like it had been made for a bad horror movie.

The urge to laugh vanished as a trickle of ice went down her spine. After all, right now she was living a bad horror movie.

Shoving the thought aside, she flipped through a few pages, frown slowly growing. Someone had scribbled notes here and there on the pages – ownership, energy use – but the handwriting was so messy she couldn't get the contents of the notes to make any sense. And right now, she was _really_ railing about Chris's stubborn adherence to the _don't talk about investigations with your family_ rule, because she had no idea if this was significant or not…

Claire blinked, raising the page a little closer.

 _It's not the handwriting that's the problem. These are written in_ code _._

Slowly, she lowered the packet, looking around the room again with new eyes, focusing less on the _quantity_ of information and more on the _form_ of it.

 _Paper. Why would they be keeping their notes on paper?_

Well. On the surface, the answer to that was simple. Criminals and nosy journalists couldn't hack into information that wasn't on a network in the first place. But the S.T.A.R.S. computers _weren't_ on an open network, for exactly that reason. None of the R.P.D. computers were, except for a few clearly marked terminals. It was one of the oddities that Chris had liked about the Raccoon City setup. Apparently, Umbrella Corporation had donated significant support to the police for top-of-the-line information security systems, since police investigations might sometimes require accessing confidential company information, and industrial espionage was a _problem_ for cutting-edge companies like Umbrella. Not to mention attempted theft or sabotage by agents from the Satrapy or the Confederacy, out to steal or destroy the secrets of the Panimmunity treatment.

Given how important that was to the security of the Republic… the S.T.A.R.S., and the Raccoon City Police in general, had computer security systems _better_ than money could buy.

 _Which means… they were worried about their investigation being tracked by someone_ inside _the system._

Going by the wreckage of the office, like a tornado had torn through the entire place, Claire was going to go out on a limb and guess that the S.T.A.R.S. team had been right to worry.

 _Although, I don't_ know _this was done by someone with something to hide_. The mess could easily have been made by the survivors of the original zombie outbreak, the ones who'd lasted long enough to at least _try_ to put up something resembling a defense.

Either way, it meant that trying to search all of this was an exercise in futility. Even if any significant information _hadn't_ been stolen, there was no organization whatsoever. She had no idea if this house record was related in some way to the R.P.D. fuel requisition form underneath it, or if they'd just happened to land in the same place. It would take a trained data analyst _months_ to get through the chaos and come up with something tangible to work with. Claire didn't have the training, and she didn't have the _time_.

 _Which means… I need to look for something that_ hasn't _been disturbed._

Tall order. Even the equipment lockers had been opened and their contents dumped out, all except for the one nearest the wall. Even _that_ one had dents and scuff marks that suggested someone had tried to force it open, despite the obviously old _OUT OF ORDER_ sign taped to the front.

Claire smiled.

 _Come on. Are you kidding, Chris?_ Flexing her fingers, she began picking her way across the chaos of the room, Sherry a quiet, curious shadow behind her. All it took was a quick glance at the lock – an older style physical lock, rather than the electronic ones the other lockers had installed – and she knew _exactly_ what her brother had been up to.

After all, she was the one who'd taught _him_ this particular trick.

Reaching out, she rested a hand lightly on the cold metal, painted the same weirdly dull green that seemed to be an industrial standard for lockers, and _reached_.

She wasn't a _powerful_ telekinetic. She left that sort of thing to her boulder-punching idiot of a big brother. But she'd never needed to bother keeping track of her keys.

With heavy _clunk_ , the latch released, and the door of the locker swung open.

"Wow!" Wide-eyed, Sherry leaned forward, bright pageboy-cut hair shifting oddly around her face due to the dust-covered clumps it had matted into. "How'd you do that? You just touched it and it opened!"

Claire bit back a grin. She didn't normally get to show this off much. "Have you heard of Quincies?"

Sherry nodded, eyes bright and eager. "Des called them weird freaks, and then the teacher made us all spend a _whole week_ doing a book report on Quincies. It was neat!" She hesitated. "Dad says it's not fair that we're not allowed to use the Quincy germ line for research anymore, though."

Oh, that didn't give Claire a bad feeling at _all_.

"Your dad's a scientist?" she asked, wrestling the door the rest of the way open. It was clear why Chris had picked this as his hiding spot; even if someone _did_ get past the lock with no key, the hinges themselves were sticky enough that no one would ever think this thing was in regular use. She was willing to bet that a lot of careful work had gone into ensuring that.

"Him _and_ Mom," Sherry said with a bit of a huff, standing clear after Claire nearly elbowed her in the head by accident. "They're _always_ working, it's like they never come home. Dad says the decontamination protocols are a pain, so he avoids leaving whenever he can."

Claire mentally winced. That didn't say very pleasant things about the guy's priorities. "Bet that gets lonely. I hate it when my brother doesn't call every now and then. That's why I'm here, actually, so I can yell at him."

Giving herself an inner pat on the back as Sherry's darkened expression lightened with a giggle, she gave the door one last yank and nearly tumbled over as it finally gave way.

 _…you're kidding me._

Nonplussed, she blinked at the interior – completely empty except for some dust that must have filtered through the vents, and a small scattering of coins on the bottom. One of them still gleamed bright and new, not a trace of dust to be seen – in fact, she could still see the track where it had hit the floor on its side and rolled briefly before fetching up against another coin and falling flat. Some sort of luck-penny tradition, maybe?

 _But… Chris sealed this. I know he did!_ The teeth of the lock had been jammed – even the correct key probably wouldn't have gotten into it. Only a telekinetic could have opened it – or, more importantly, set that up to begin with.

 _He wouldn't have done that just to leave it empty._

Frowning, Claire reached inside, checking along the inner edges of the door. The dust showed clearly that nothing had been openly put in this locker for months, if not years. But if there weren't any obvious contents…

Reaching the underside of the upper shelf, her fingers brushed paper.

 _Gotcha!_

A few moment's work, and she'd managed to wiggle the small journal free from where it had been wedged up against the supports, out of sight from anything but a careful inspection. An inspection that she was willing to bet most people wouldn't try, after that first look at the empty locker would have apparently confirmed that it really wasn't in use.

 _What would be so important that Chris would take so much trouble to hide it like that?_

She almost didn't want to know. Chris was so brave that he was kind of stupid about it, she'd teased him about that for _years_. Their dad had spent a lot of time drumming into Chris's head that _scared_ wasn't the same as _weak_ , because Chris would never admit he was scared as a teenager, and got huffy about people who did.

This whole room – the desks covered in paper, the dumped-out drawers and lockers, this triple-hidden journal…

There was a whole lot of _scared_ that she could practically feel pulsing in the air in here.

 _Then again, we are talking about a zombie apocalypse. If you're not scared, you're a prime candidate for a Darwin's Award._

A quick glance around, and Claire made her way across the room to a desk corner that had managed to escape the worst of the chaos. Setting the book down, she opened it, and had to bite her lip for a moment at the familiar messy scrawl inside. She'd grown up trying to decipher grocery lists and notes on the door in that same handwriting. She had to take a moment for a deep breath – and to very deliberately take her teeth away from her lip, she'd spent _years_ breaking that habit after a bad fright had led to her biting _through_ her lip once, and she wasn't about to let it come back now – and then began flipping through the pages.

It looked like a collection of notes for some sort of investigation – between the handwriting and the lack of context, most of it didn't make sense. A list of locations and names. Several pages that had been crossed out with so much vehemence that the pen had actually ripped one of the pages – she thought those might have been an attempt to map out connections between the names. Others were clearly brainstorming pages, with a bunch of apparently unrelated terms – _dog, jogger, shoe, cannibal_ …

Given what she'd seen in the city, Claire could barely bite down a shudder at that one.

Other than those obviously frustrated marked-out pages, the notes were relatively neat, if opaque; this had clearly been Chris's "portable brain," something for him to scrawl out ideas as they came to him. He'd always favored physical paper for that sort of thing.

Except that then, something happened. The handwriting turned jagged, rushed, like he'd been throwing things onto the paper as fast as he thought of them, without bothering to sketch out the connections. _Licker, labs, incendiaries. Umbrella, Wesker, Irons?_

 _Incendiaries_ , she noted uneasily, had been underlined. Twice.

And then two pages that had clearly been removed from the journal – but carefully, tidy, as though the paper had been scored and then torn using a straight-edge.

The rest of the journal, about half of the pages, was blank.

Claire let out a slow breath, trying to sort through the scattered information.

 _Those missing pages… that wasn't an accident. Chris took the most important information out._

Suggesting that the S.T.A.R.S. had seen _something_ , and had taken off as a group, to investigate… or to escape. Which was not a comforting thought.

"…Sherry," she said slowly. "You said your parents are scientists?"

The girl nodded. "They work for Umbrella."

That was… not surprising. _Most_ people in Raccoon City worked for Umbrella Corporation, in some way, shape or form. But given what she _had_ been able to glean from the journal… "Do you know where they are?"

She hated asking it. And the way Sherry's breath hitched slightly and the girl looked down at her sneakers made her feel even worse.

"…No," Sherry mumbled, her voice quavering a bit. "Mom… Mom pulled me out of school. She said there'd been an accident and I needed to get a shot, just in case. Only when she gave it to me, I started getting really, really _dizzy_ …" Her words choked to a stop, and she took a deep breath, the tentacles echoing the motion of her arms as she hugged herself. "And then I woke up, and I was… I was…!"

Claire moved before she even thought about it, dropping down to her knees and wrapping her arms around the girl's shoulders. "Oh, _honey_."

She couldn't say it was okay. She had _no_ idea if any of this was okay or not. Sherry had _tentacles_. And something about the way the girl's hair tickled against her collarbone as Sherry buried her face in Claire's vest made her wonder if there were more changes than just the obvious.

 _Her mother did this to her. And didn't even warn her? What sort of mother_ does _that?_

And that didn't even get into the terrifying question of what, exactly, Sherry's mother had been _doing_ in the labs. Even Quincies weren't _that_ far off the human baseline. And all these changes had happened to Sherry in… what, a few days? At _most_?

Not to mention, if this was the effect of a _vaccine_ or something…

For just a second, Claire couldn't breathe.

 _She gave Sherry a shot. If that was meant to protect her from the zombies somehow… if we can find where they made it in time, if they have more…_

They might be able to _save Leon_.

"And then?" she asked gently, once Sherry had steadied herself a bit. And tried to keep that painful burn of hope down to a low ember in the back of her mind. Hope was a good thing, but she didn't even know if the shot Sherry had gotten was even intended for dealing with the zombies. There were too many ifs. She didn't dare count on it. "What happened after you woke up?"

Sherry rubbed at her eyes roughly, squaring her shoulders. "Mom left before I woke up," she said. "But she left a note. She said that if she wasn't there, I should meet her in the police station. And to stay away from _everybody_ until I got here." Her breath hitched. "Only I got here, and Mom's _not here_. It's just dead people, and z-zombies, and Chief Irons – and Mom always told me that I had to be very careful and stay away from him."

Oof. Poor kid. It was pretty clear that she knew the odds, if her mother hadn't turned up…

Wait. "Chief Irons is still alive?" she asked, startled.

Sherry nodded. "I think so. I saw him upstairs, just a bit. But Mom says he's a bad man. And then Dad would complain that she was overreacting and that Irons was really helpful with their research."

Research. Irons's name in Chris's notebook. And the ransacked S.T.A.R.S. office. Oh, she had a _really_ bad feeling about this.

But at the same time, she could feel the grim thrill of a _goal_ buzzing through her, pushing bruises and scrapes and fatigue aside for now. Because maybe she could get some _answers_.

"I think we may need to go talk to him."

Sherry eyed her, looking… somewhere between dubious and intrigued. "I thought we were supposed to stay here?" she asked.

"We'll have to leave eventually." Claire picked up the journal and tucked it into the pocket of her vest, silently thanking Chris's habit of keeping things like that on him at all times; it meant they were a portable size. "If Irons is still alive, we have to at least _try_ to get him out, too, because I'm not leaving anyone in this mess." Well. In principle, anyway. In practice… if Irons really _was_ involved in how this whole thing happened, she'd _seriously_ reconsider her options.

Sherry swallowed. "…Okay. But we have to be careful. There are _monsters_ out there."

About to reload her gun, Claire went still. "Monsters," she said carefully. "Not just zombies?"

Sherry nodded. "Something was running on the _wall_ earlier," she said. "And… when I was coming here… there was something chasing me."

"Did you get a look at it?" Claire asked carefully, very deliberately setting the bullets in place and closing the chamber, and then glancing around the room. The S.T.A.R.S. would have kept some of their equipment in here. Hopefully that included some weapons…

Sherry shook her head. "No. I was too scared. But I _heard_ …"

Whatever she was about to say next was drowned out by a distant and _way too near_ grating, thundering _roar_.

* * *

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

* * *

AN: Leon's estimate for how long zombification takes is based on a full walkthrough I watched – you first encounter Marvin at about 13:00, and find him again right before he turns at about 46:00. Which, yes, I know, timed event, will only happen when you walk back into the room – but it seemed as reasonable a basis for timeframe as any.

And yes, he's using a first aid kit rather than herbs in pots. If I found myself in the middle of a city with zombies everywhere, I wouldn't trust _anything_ that wasn't sealed and preferably made somewhere safely _away_ from the biochemical-happy corporation…

Technically, in canon, Sherry is twelve, but I've de-aged her to around ten years old, with the other characters guessing at an age around nine (since it's Tatter!canon that the shinigami transformation reduces the person's height and weight, in order to have enough mass for the tentacles, and below a certain age height and mental development is the best tool to estimate a child's age). The reason I did that… well. Mostly, because I didn't want her to be too close in age to Toushirou from Vathara's original fic, because I don't want Sherry – who is admirably tough in dealing with her situation in canon – to come off badly in comparison. Vathara did a good job of writing Toushirou as a kid, but… well. Comparing a character who has always been written as a kid, to one based on a kid-sized character whose non-AU version is _several hundred years old_ just isn't a fair deal!

As an interesting aside, one of the big challenges of writing this, for me, was figuring out how the physical arrangement of a shinigami's body structure actually _works_ – because I'm kinesthetic by inclination, and so the physical sense of _how_ someone stands and moves is very important in my writing. One thing that immediately came up is that the arrangement of a shinigami's tentacles is actually highly inefficient. According to Vathara, a major influence on their design was D&D's Displacer beasts… but those are _quadrupedal_ , which means that the tentacles are actually located on top of the body, and thus can strike in all directions.

Shinigami are bipedal. This means that for the tentacles to be used in front of the body – which is the way humans are mentally hard-wired and physically designed to operate – there are some severe problems. For one, the tentacles lose a good two feet – and likely more – of their functional length, just getting past the torso. This automatically means that using the tentacles to grab an opponent in front of you is highly unlikely to work. They don't have the reach, or the length needed to wrap around and bind. More dangerous, using the tentacles would restrict the shinigami's ability to move their arms, because the arms and tentacles actually share "functional workspace" – both of them require open space around the torso to move.

This led to two conclusions. First, when a shinigami's unarmed, they're most likely to grab with their _hands_ – which are, after all, ideally designed for exactly that – and strike with the tentacles, rather than binding the way an octopus might. Especially given that the tentacles have a lot of nerves, and no bones, and thus are very vulnerable. And a shinigami who is combat ready likely has the top pair of tentacles arcing over the shoulders (where they are least likely to encumber the movement of the arms), while the lower pair remain in back for stabilization and defending the rear.

Of course, this means _surrounding_ a shinigami is a very, very bad idea. Because then, all striking limbs can operate with a minimum of interference.

Yes, I overthink these things. But it's a real concern!


	2. Something's Out There

AN: …so my original plan was to post this on Friday, but Nano took priority. One must not impede the Wordcount!

Half of the fun of this story was the fact that it's pure dungeon crawl. I _like_ writing dungeon crawls! Of course, that has also prompted certain parties to tease me about taking four hundred words to _open a door_ …

(I have a reason for that – beyond, "When there might be zombies or people with guns behind those darns, darn right you take your time opening it!" When it's not Nano, I aim for a minimum of 400 words per day, following the model of the late Terry Pratchett. Usually, what happens is I aim to get through at least one "event item" on my mental script for the scene. If that event item happens to be "open the door"…)

* * *

CHAPTER TWO  
Something's Out There

* * *

Leon was moving before his conscious mind could catch up, dropping to one knee to present a smaller target with his back against the wall and his gun raised, because there was no way, _no way_ he was going to be able to outrun that, but like hell was he going to go down without even _trying_ to fight…

Except that, as the echoing roar and thunderous crash faded to silence… nothing happened.

Even so, it took several moments of stillness and silence before Leon could convince shaking muscles that it was safe to stand up and lower his gun again. Empty hallway or not.

Forcing his breathing to stay steady, he pulled the radio off his belt and flipped it to active transmission. "Claire? Are you two all right?"

" _Leon!_ " Even through the crackle of the transmission, Claire's relief was obvious. As was her unease. " _We heard it, too. Do you know what it was?_ "

"Not a clue," he admitted, trying to keep the chill that had just run down his spine from showing in his voice. One thing to hear that noise, so close it had felt like the source-

 _-the monster-_

-was right on top of him. Another to know that Claire, in a closed room on the far side of a not insubstantial building, had _also_ heard it clearly enough to have the same gut-level reaction he had.

" _Are you okay?_ " Claire asked, after a half-moment of silence – she might have nodded and forgotten that he couldn't see that across an audio-only transmission. " _You hadn't radioed – I was starting to get worried…_ "

Had it been that long since he'd left the S.T.A.R.S. office? Actually, it probably had. He'd gotten a little distracted, working his way through the break room. He'd avoided that area in his initial sweep, given the density of zombies, but… well, when the worst had already happened, why _not_ take a risk or two? "I'm fine," he replied, pitching his voice to be as reassuring as he could. "I've covered most of the ground floor at this point, I think; I'm almost to the garage. Hopefully, there will be something we can use to get out of here."

His stomach jolted, and he had to breathe in slowly through his nose and out again. "…that you can use, I mean."

" _…Just remember to check the back seat this time._ " Claire's voice wavered only a little. " _No more zombie hitchhikers_."

Leon actually huffed a laugh. Not that anything had been _funny_ about that unpleasant little surprise at the time, but in hindsight…

" _Be careful, okay?_ " The worry carried clear across the crackling connection. " _I found some of Chris's notes… I think Chief Irons may be involved in all of this._ "

Leon swallowed, trying to remind his heart that it couldn't do its job if it kept dropping into the pit of his stomach. "So maybe it's a good thing I was late for my first day."

That got her to laugh a little. Good.

"I'll contact you again once I've checked the garage," he told her. "Keep your ears open, though. Sounds like we've got more to worry about than just zombies. If you don't think the office is safe, get out of there. Leon out."

Flicking the radio back to passive mode, and making certain the volume was turned down – the last thing he wanted was an unexpected contact drawing the zombies' attention before he was ready for them – Leon took a minute to shake out his shoulders, both trying to ease his accumulated attention and to check on the bite. So far, so good, at least as far as he could tell. It didn't seem to hurt any more than before, and when he pulled his shirt back to glance at it, the wound looked… messy, but clean, with no particular signs of infection or anything more unpleasant. He was hoping that was a good sign. It wasn't exactly like he knew the symptoms of developing zombification.

Then he reflexively checked his gun – not necessary, he'd reloaded after the mess in the break room, but it didn't hurt to be sure – and began moving down the hallway again, keeping his pace to a measured walk and stepping carefully, as quietly as he could in the heavy boots, listening hard for the sound of shuffling, or the soft moan of air forced through nonfunctioning lungs.

 _What the…_

Was he hearing _barking_?

 _The kennels must be in this direction._ Which was like a punch in the gut; he really didn't want to think about what would have happened to those dogs, or any other pets in the city.

 _Can dogs turn?_

Oh, that was not a good thought. Especially given that these were likely _police dogs_ , modified to be stronger, faster, more agile, _smarter_ than their pre-genetech ancestors…

Shaking his head, he slowed as he reached the turn in the hallway. This was either part of the service area of the old museum, or added on when the building had been converted; the walls and doors were industrial in style, rather than the baroque architecture of the main building. Taking a breath, he peered carefully around the corner; the barking was loud enough now that he didn't trust his ears to warn him. But the short hall around the turn was empty, except for a closed steel door, the sign reading _GARAGE_ over it only legible due to the light of the _EXIT_ sign blazing above it.

The barking sounded dangerously close.

 _Damn it. What now-_

 _Crack! Crack!_

He knew that sound. A small handgun had been fired. Nearby.

 _Someone's out there!_

Gritting his teeth, Leon threw caution to the wind and ran forward, grabbing the handle of the door and shoving it open.

And almost immediately stumbled back in surprise, pushed by the sudden surge of _heat_ and _smoke_ …

 _Fire!_

Several fires, he realized after a moment, as he ducked below that initial billow through the door and took in the hot red glare of embers still glowing amidst the blackened interior of a patrol car. Another one a few spaces down still had yellow flames flickering through shattered windows, the acrid black smoke of burning upholstery billowing up to cover the cold white lights on the ceiling in a thick haze.

Which was still more than enough light to see the leaping, snarling bodies surrounding an overturned truck, black fur falling out in patches to uncover gangrenous flesh as they swarmed over each other.

And that was _wrong_. It wasn't just the hint of stiffness in the movements that should have been unsettlingly fluid. The police dogs Leon had known… genetech had shaped them to be nearly as intelligent as humans, although their minds worked along slightly different lines. And even a basic, unmodified dog from one of the pre-space breeding lines was a _pack_ animal. They didn't swarm, they _hunted_ , using numbers and tactics to distract the prey from teeth coming in from behind. And yet not a single one of these dogs had tried circling around, or doing _anything_ except clambering clumsily over each other, following a straight line along the side of the overturned cab towards their prey.

Which was likely what had allowed the dark-haired woman standing on the side of the boxy cargo truck, using its bulk as high ground, to hold out. Even as Leon watched, her small handgun clicked empty – but even though her face paled, she drew in a deep, careful breath, reaching into a small handbag with one hand… and snapped out her foot in a sharp kick that caught the leading dog-zombie in the throat as it lunged, knocking it back and off the truck. The hounds were crammed so close that the two behind it fell as well, giving the woman just enough time to desperately eject the spent clip and slam another one in-

 _But she has to be low on ammunition, there are limits to the amount normal civilians are allowed to carry even if they have a license_.

Allowing himself a steadying breath of his own, Leon sighted along his own gun, aiming not for the front of the swarm – bad angle, if he missed he'd risk hitting the woman, and he doubted the dogs would redirect their attention with prey so close – but for the middle of the pack. They were crammed so close together, he would hit _something_ no matter what…

Luck was with him. Just as he fired, one of the dogs lunged upwards – and caught the bullet cleanly in the back of the head. Cut off mid-bark, the body dropped.

With that, the swarm of fur and flesh split, resolving into five dogs. Two stayed on the woman, but the three that had fallen when she'd kicked the leader turned towards him as they scrabbled back up to their feet.

Taking half a step back so that he was covered on either side by the frame of the door, Leon took aim again. Three quick shots, and he'd managed to take down one. The others launched themselves across the parking lot, baying-

 _They're_ fast _!_

-and his next shot missed, _spang_ ing off the reinforced side of one of the cars on the far side and shattering something, probably one of the lights. The next desperate shot managed to shatter the shoulder joint of one dog's foreleg, sending it crashing to concrete when the suddenly non-functional limb failed to catch its momentum – and then the other dog was _there_ , lunging with white teeth gleaming and an oddly grey tongue spraying foam.

Leon lunged forward and down, underneath the zombie-dog's leap, and twisted around. The dog skidded down the hall for a few feet and then turned, lunging again before Leon could bring his gun around to bear. Instead, he lashed out with his foot, and snapping teeth closed on reinforced leather and metal. Which gave Leon enough time to draw in a deep, careful breath, take aim, and put a bullet through the dog's eye.

 _I love my boots_.

By the time he extracted his foot from the dog's jaws – the leather scored deeply, but not, thankfully, broken – and finished off the crippled zombie-dog, the woman had finished off her own pair, waiting with a pale-faced kind of terrified calm for the second to lunge before firing directly through the roof of the gaping jaws. She slid down the side of the truck as Leon dealt with the others.

"Thank goodness!" she said, dark eyes wide with relief. "I don't know _what_ I would have done if you hadn't come along."

 _…Seriously?_ "Looked like you were managing pretty well," Leon said, trying not to let his amusement show. He wasn't sure if it was deliberate or not, but… pretty woman playing up the gratitude to get on a cop's good side. Oldest trick in or _out_ of the book.

Not that he'd be inclined to blame her even if it _were_ deliberate. Zombie police dogs. _Ouch_. And the pale cast of her face and the way her hands trembled just a little as she ejected the now-spent clip and pocketed it before clicking in another fresh one – well, _that_ wasn't faked.

On the other hand… for just a moment, he thought she looked startled, or maybe thoughtful. And when she replied, her voice was noticeably less breathy, her smile becoming a bit cooler – but, oddly, more genuine than before. "I'm Ada Wong," she said. "I have to admit, I didn't think there were any police officers left. Alive, at least. For a moment there, I thought you were another zombie."

That… hurt more than he'd expected, like a punch in the stomach. Leon forced the feeling, and the aching awareness of the pain in his shoulder – still stable, _please_ still be stable – aside, and made himself smile weakly. "On behalf of the force, ouch," he said ruefully. "But from a practical standpoint, I can't say I blame you." He shrugged. "Leon Kennedy."

Neither of them offered a hand. From the look of things, Ada was no more eager than Leon to let go of her little derringer-style handgun.

"What happened here?" Ada asked. "I came this evening to meet someone, and the entire town was… well. I think you're the first non-zombie I've seen since."

Lovely. Another person who'd stumbled headlong into this mess. What were the planetary emergency forces _doing_? Even if an SOS hadn't made it out, surely _someone_ had noticed something was off by now.

"I just got here myself," he admitted. When Ada eyed his uniform, openly skeptical, he could only smile helplessly. "This was _supposed_ to be my first day. I was late."

Ada's free hand came up to hide her mouth for a moment, but from the sudden sparkle in dark eyes, she was fighting down a laugh. "And I thought _I_ was having a bad day."

Leon sighed a little. "About survivors – there are a few others in the station, on the second floor. I came down here to see if I could find us a getaway car, but…" He looked around the smoky parking lot and ruined vehicles, and grimaced. "I can give you directions – I've already cleared out most of the ground floor…"

Ada shook her head. "I'm looking for someone – a reporter named Ben. Is he one of them?"

"No," Leon admitted. "Haven't seen anyone by that name. Do you know where he is?"

"Not exactly," she said, eyes still scanning their surroundings. "He contacted me a while ago – said that he had information about my boyfriend, and said he'd share if I would meet with him. Apparently he was hunting down some sort of big scoop." She glanced at the bodies of the dogs, still twitching spasmodically, and grimaced. "I suppose I know what it was, now."

Information. Leon wanted that so much that it _hurt_. But… "If he was looking into this… well, whatever it is… he probably was right in the middle of things," he cautioned.

"Possibly." Ada slanted a thoughtful sidelong look at him, as though gauging his reaction. "But from what he did tell me in his message… I think he was investigating Chief Irons as well." Her smile became crooked. "I thought I might check the city jail."

Irons. Claire had said she thought he was involved, as well. "Do you believe he's right?" he asked, keeping his tone neutral.

"I _know_ he is." Ada looked pointedly around at the ruined cars. "Zombies didn't do _this_."

Damn. _Damn_. He hadn't thought of that. Either someone had set the cars on fire – probably with the intent of rendering the electronic systems nonfunctional – or they'd gone straight for the electronics, and the sparks had set the upholstery on fire. Either way… that was human action at work.

 _Someone didn't want people getting out._ Or at the very least, wanted the police force crippled in the middle of the crisis.

"I'll check the jail," he offered. Among other things… well, ironically, anyone in there would have been relatively protected from the zombies, raising the chance of survivors. But they were also facing slow death by starvation, unless someone came to get them out. "Go on upstairs – one of the others has been looking through the S.T.A.R.S. records. She might have some information for you."

Ada shook her head. "I'd rather check the jail myself."

Argh. Not that he blamed her, particularly if she was serious about suspecting Irons. Any policeman was automatically suspect by association. But… "You realize, he may very well already have been turned," he said, trying not to feel the ache in his shoulder. Was it more or less than a few minutes ago? He wasn't sure. But he hadn't felt any kind of fever yet; that was probably a good sign, right?

"I doubt it. You know that reporter type; they're like cockroaches." Ada's smile had teeth. "It might be dangerous. But I have you to protect me, don't I?"

Leon felt his lips tighten slightly. "You seem fairly competent at protecting yourself," he told her, and braced himself. If she was serious about this… he would cover her as much as he could, but she needed to know. "And in ten or fifteen minutes, I'm not going to be capable of protecting anyone." Shifting the strap of his uniform aside, he indicated the torn, bloody shoulder of his jacket.

Ada drew in a sharp breath, starting, and for the first time, she seemed to actually _look_ at him, rather than simply skimming over _policeman, young, male_. "…I still need to go myself," she told him. "I need to know."

Leon sighed slightly. Not that he'd expected any differently, but… "All right. But try to stay behind me. Just… in case."

For a moment, he thought Ada was going to object again. Then she glanced at his shoulder, and down at her gun, and he knew she got what he was trying to say.

 _I want you behind me so that you can shoot me when I turn, if I don't get the chance to do it myself._

Luckily, the jail was directly attached to the parking lot, so that offenders could be processed and locked in with a minimum of opportunities to cause chaos and escape. The door was partially blocked by one of the trucks, but the fire had eased enough for Leon to reach inside and disable the parking brake, and then he and Ada were able to push it clear of the jail door.

Leon was still carrying the master keycard that Marvin had given him, although he worried for a moment that the fire had damaged the electronic lock. But a second after he swiped it, the light on the handle turned green with a heavy _clunk_ of the bolt disengaging.

 _Well, that tears it. If there are any zombies in there, they'll definitely have heard that._ Glancing at Ada, he quickly signed for her to move to the side and cover him – and then shoved the heavy, weighted door open with his foot, handgun raised and ready to fire.

A small space, empty except for some cleaning supplies. Dark – something had disrupted the electrical wiring, apparently, because the lights were dim and flickering sporadically, as though the flow of energy to the bulbs wasn't stable.

And, heavy in the air, the stomach-twisting sharp smells of fresh blood and recent death.

Leon traded a quick look at Ada, who followed him through the door with nothing more than a blink and a faint wrinkle of her nose at the smell.

 _I'd say that's not a promising sign_ , her grim eyes silently agreed, with a slight nod of her head.

Trying to slow his heart, Leon listened carefully. For a moment, he thought he heard… _something_ , a whisper of movement, too fast and too _soft_ for a zombie's lumbering movements. Then it was gone, leaving him to wonder whether he'd really heard anything other than his imagination.

He almost snorted at that. _All things considered, let's just assume it was real, shall we?_

Nodding back to Ada, Leon crossed the narrow hallway, trying to walk as silently as he could in his heavy boots, and pressed against the inside wall to look down to where the corridor turned into a barred gate, marking the official containment area of the jail.

 _Huh. Closed. And there's not supposed to be any other way to get in or out._ But _something_ had. The reek of blood and excrement from voided intestines was definitely stronger inside…

Leon eyed the spaces between the bars, thinking about that quiet _skitter_ , and then looked over his shoulder at Ada, who had followed him, ghost-quiet on those practical black flats. Silently, he indicated her, pointed two fingers at his eyes, pinched his fingers together until they almost touched, and then gestured behind them and up towards the ceiling. _Keep a look out for small things above or behind us_.

Ada nodded shortly, eyes already scanning their surroundings smoothly and steadily, noting dark corners and shadows.

Then Leon eased forward, carefully watching the floors and walls himself, until he could peer around the edge of the corner and through the bars of the gate into the cell area beyond.

Only two cells. This was a jail, after all, not a prison – and Raccoon City wasn't actually a _big_ town, particularly considering that Umbrella had their own corporate security forces to handle internal issues, and there wasn't that much of the town that _wasn't_ Umbrella-related. The nearest cell was closed, but the light was off – not in use.

The far cell…

Leon winced, looking at shattered stone, warped metal bars, and the red spray painted across the far wall of the cell, oddly garish in the flickering fluorescent light. "I think your reporter isn't going to be answering many questions," he breathed, pitching his voice to carry as far as Ada and no farther. Whatever had done… that …might still be in there.

Ada glanced inside herself as Leon moved to the other side of the door, hoping to get a better angle to see what was inside the cell. Unfortunately, whoever had designed this section hadn't had physical surveillance in mind – although the new position did reveal what looked like an outflung arm. Unfortunately, looking at the angle…

Leon had the queasy feeling that the limb wasn't actually attached to anything.

Ada swallowed briefly, pale beneath her makeup, but didn't look particularly surprised. "Can we get in?"

Somehow, Leon had had the feeling that she was going to ask that. "Hang on."

The master keycard worked on the gate, which swung open with, thankfully, only a slight creak – apparently the place had at least been well-maintained. Leon carefully stepped through, feeling more than hearing Ada close behind him. After a moment of hesitation, he left the door open. They'd cleared the parking lot of zombies, so odds were good nothing would come in behind them – and whatever had done this was clearly not something that was going to be stopped by walls and bars. Which meant they damn-well needed to be careful not to get locked in _with_ it.

But nothing stirred as they carefully advanced down the hallway, staying along the outer wall for better visibility, until they could actually see inside.

Staring, Leon slowly lowered his gun.

The bars of the cell were bowed outward, as though something massive had slammed or been thrown into them. The outer wall of the cell was shattered, rubble collapsed inwards onto the cell floor. The wall between the two cells had been broken near the base, taken out along with a massive piece of the floor. Leon could hear the soft whisper of running water through the hole – apparently it had opened onto the old sewers running under the city.

The body slumped in the cell… wasn't much of a body anymore. The legs and hips were relatively intact, but the torso…

Leon had heard the phrase "torn limb from limb" before. This was the first time he'd actually seen something like that in real life. One arm had been ripped completely loose and thrown aside, while the other arm and the head, along with about half of the rib cage, were still nominally attached to the legs. Nominally.

 _…at least that's one corpse that's not likely to be rising as a zombie._

"Well," Ada said, lowering her gun. "That _is_ Ben. Or was, at least."

Her tone was oddly detached – but then again, Leon felt oddly distant as well. In an odd way, the stuttering fluorescent light actually helped. The whole scene was so _garish_ that it felt almost at right angles to reality, as though they'd stepped into a cartoon of sorts.

Not to mention that, after zombies and zombie _dogs_ … a corpse that stayed put and didn't twitch was a little lower on the horror meter. Gruesome or not.

Which didn't mean that he didn't hesitate for a moment before swiping his card to open the door – and then, when the warped steel jammed rather than opening automatically, wrestling it open just enough for the two of them to get through. Because much as he didn't want to get anywhere _near_ whatever had done this, he had to get answers. So that he could warn Claire and Sherry about what they might have to avoid.

 _What_ happened _here?_

Once they were through, Leon paused at the door, letting Ada move ahead to check the body. Something she did without enthusiasm, but also without the gut-level _cringe_ reflex of the average civilian suddenly faced with violent and ugly death, he noted, filing that thought away with the other observations he'd made about the woman. Not that he particularly cared what her secrets were. He had one job he'd set himself, and that was to help any survivors get _out_. Who those survivors were didn't matter.

Hell. If Irons was still alive, Leon would try to get _him_ out, too. Though he wasn't about to put his back to the man.

Pushing that out of his mind, he focused on getting the big picture, trying to reconstruct what had happened here.

Given the way the rubble from the outer wall had fallen _inward_ … something had broken through the wall from the outside – and oh, that wasn't terrifying at _all_ – and attacked Ben. So far as Leon could tell, the dents in the metal bars must have been made by physically _flinging_ the reporter into them. Which was chilling, but also comforting in a cold way. At least that meant odds were good Ben hadn't been conscious – or possibly even _alive_ – when he'd been… well, torn to pieces like a paper doll.

After which, the attacker had dropped what was left and then punched through the floor in the corner of the cell, to drop down into the sewers.

 _Which means it could be anywhere now._

Frowning, Leon crouched down at a place where the bloodspray had been smeared. The tracks were oddly small, given the damage done. Human-sized. And…

 _Is that a shoeprint?_

It was.

 _Dress shoe. Men's, middling size_. No treads that he could make out, although that was likely due to the blood spreading…

 _This happened recently._ Within the last half hour, if he were to guess. Which brought to mind that spine-chilling _roar_ , and the crash, and oh but he did not have a good feeling about this.

Then he looked up – just in time to see Ada extract a small data pad from underneath the wreckage of the bed. She glanced at the cracked screen, shrugged slightly, and tucked it in the small bag she carried over her shoulder.

And then she stepped up to the edge of the hole in the floor, studied it for a moment, and _jumped down_.

"Ada, _wait_!" Swearing under his breath, Leon scrambled back to his feet and started towards the edge himself – only to stop short just a few feet back, when the floor creaked slightly. For the most part, it was structurally sound – apparently the old sewer only overlapped the room at the one spot. But that didn't mean it was entirely trustworthy.

"It's fine," Ada's voice echoed up, fading with the sound of footsteps splashing through water. "I just want to check something. I'll be right back."

 _Augh_.

For a moment, Leon hesitated. Then, growling in frustration, he grabbed for the radio at his belt. Because like hell he was going to leave Ada without backup with whatever had done _this_ wandering around, but he had other responsibilities as well.

"Claire, this is Leon. Come in."

The radio went silent for a long moment, and then crackled. " _Leon? Is something wrong?_ "

"…Kind of," he admitted. "I've been through the garage. It's… All the vehicles have been wrecked."

" _Guess we aren't catching a ride from there, then._ " Odd. She sounded thoughtful, more than upset.

"There's more," he said grimly, keeping a weather eye on that gaping hole in the wall. As it was, it didn't represent too much of a threat. He didn't see any zombies in the street for the moment, and even if they tried to get in through here, this part of the police complex was pretty closed off from the rest.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the real problem.

"Be careful. There's something out there that can break through the walls."

Another long pause before Claire responded. By her tone when she did, Leon suspected that had been because she'd taken the time to run through a few choice terms in her head. " _Oh,_ lovely. _So staying inside isn't any sort of protection. Leon, we need to get out of here._ "

"Yeah." Leon rubbed at his face with his free hand, trying to think.

" _I have an idea,_ " Claire said. " _Sherry and I will take what we can and make for Irons's office. Maybe there's something useful there._ "

Well. Not like Leon had any better ideas at the moment. Taking to the roads without some sort of vehicle would be suicide right now. "All right. I've found another survivor; I'm assisting her at the moment, but when we're done I'll send her up to you." Assuming Ada would actually go. But he had to _try_.

" _Got it. Be careful, Leon._ "

He let out a slow breath. "Same to you."

Flicking the radio back to passive reception, he clipped it back to his belt. Then he carefully stepped to the edge of the hole in the floor. There were lights on down below, enough that he could see that the drop went about ten feet down.

 _Note to self. Going to have to find a different way to get back up out of that._

Then he carefully lowered himself down into the sewers.

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

Claire lowered the radio with a sigh, looking over their collected loot.

She and Sherry had gone through the rest of the S.T.A.R.S. office as thoroughly as they could. The paperwork was a lost cause; even with Chris's notes to guide them, the place was such a scrambled-up _mess_ that she'd be old and grey before she'd be able to make any sense of it.

Except for one thing. When climbing under the desks, Sherry had fished out a pair of blueprints. It had taken Claire a minute to recognize that they were both of the same building: the police station itself, one an old faded set showing the original layout of the building, and then the official blueprints of the police department, today. Which made a certain amount of sense, because she remembered Chris complaining about the fact that this had once been an art museum, and a lot of the layout had remained annoyingly complex. But they still had made changes, even removing sections entirely…

Except.

There were photos attached to the blueprints. And according to _those_ , that small missing section in the back of the building was _still there_.

Next to Chief Irons's office.

It might be nothing. But Irons was _definitely_ suspect, going by Chris's notes.

 _And I don't think we can stay in here much longer._

Nothing she could pin down. Just a _feeling_. But added to Leon's news of something that could break through _walls_ …

Still, while the paperwork was mostly useless… this was the S.T.A.R.S. office. They didn't just do deskwork in here. It was their primary mission room. And the Special Tactical and Rescue Service always had to be ready to move out immediately.

Which meant _equipment_.

Not as much as she'd hoped when she'd fished a packet of bullets out from the mess of stuff lying in front of the opened lockers. Which made sense, when she'd thought about it. The S.T.A.R.S. members had _left_. Odds were good they'd taken the lion's share of the equipment with them. And… well, just because someone seemed to have searched this place with intent, didn't mean that regular beat cops hadn't also come looking for extra supplies when everything went mad. She'd resigned herself to simply collecting reloads for her borrowed handgun.

Then she'd nearly had a heart attack when she'd pushed aside a jacket that had smelled faintly of smoke and a lot of sweat (ugh), and found a _grenade_ lying underneath.

An unprimed grenade, she noted, _after_ her heart had attempted to crack her ribs from beating so loudly. Pin still safely in place.

It wasn't the only one, either. She'd managed to find two more in the mess. Now, she eyed the small pile as she tightened her harness, checked the draw on the knife Chris had given her, and made sure she had at least two reloads in easy reach.

 _Oh, this is such a bad idea…_

Chris had taught her self-defense, and the care and handling of basic firearms. Explosives were _not_ on that list.

On the other hand, if she got into a situation where she needed one and didn't have them, she'd die kicking herself for being an idiot.

 _Might as well bring them. Leon might know how to use them._ If nothing else – she had to make herself think it – if Leon ran out of time, he'd want to take as many zombies with him as he could.

 _Please don't let it come to that._ If they could just find Sherry's mother in time…

Aaaaand she was stalling. Shaking her head, Claire scooped the grenades up and put them in a carry-sack that she slung over her shoulder, along with the rest of her extra ammo. A little awkward, but she was nowhere near up to shooting and running at the same time anyway, so it wasn't really going to affect her aim much. And she could always drop it if she had to.

Then she looked at Sherry, who was standing determined guard by the door, odd tentacles twitching faintly and face screwed up in concentration as she listened intently.

And Claire didn't think it was her imagination. The wisps of hair that had managed to escape the clumpy mess of most of it _were_ moving faintly.

 _If it helps, I'm not going to complain_. "Ready to go?" she asked.

Sherry nodded, the movement awkward as her shoulders tensed. "I don't think there's anything out there right now," she whispered.

Claire nodded back, taking the moment to draw in a few slow, careful breaths to help calm and center herself, and then opened the door.

She'd taken the time to look over the current blueprints carefully – and was bringing them along, just in case. But from what she'd seen, her best bet for getting out of here would be to stay on the second floor and backtrack along the way that she'd come in. Which could be tricky, because she'd dodged more than a few zombies getting this far. They'd be riled up and clustered in this direction now.

Her hand tightened on her borrowed handgun. _I'll deal with that when we get there._

At least the hallway outside the S.T.A.R.S. office was still clear. She could hear faint sounds from the corner in the other direction – but Sherry had explained Leon's trick with the stairs, and if the zombies hadn't climbed up by this point, they probably wouldn't be a problem.

Although she was glad that Sherry was keeping a weather eye behind them anyway. Just in case.

Then she reached the end of the hallway, and the door leading to the mezzanine wrapping around the second floor of the open atrium of the central room. And it was _thumping_.

Claire swallowed. _At least zombies don't get the idea of battering rams._ They could try to walk through a closed door all day, it would hold. She hoped.

Although it was a moot point, because she and Sherry needed to get through there.

For a minute, Claire considered trying to loop around, to come out through one of the other doors she remembered. They'd been locked, but that wouldn't be a problem for her, and she might be able to avoid the mass at this door. Except that then all these zombies would be _behind_ them, and she'd be gambling that they'd be able to get out of the hallway without slowing down. And that was assuming they'd be able to get through anything in the rooms that they'd have to pass through to get to the other door.

And darn it, she was _sick_ of dodging around these things.

Eyeing the door, she considered her options. A grenade? No, bad idea. She didn't know much about them, but she remembered Chris mocking movies where people hid behind normal household furniture to escape shrapnel. Plaster and pasteboard wouldn't help, and she wasn't sure of the range the explosion could have. Not to mention, the grenade would get one or two zombies at most – most of the damage was done by the flying shrapnel, which wouldn't slow a zombie down. And human bodies were good at absorbing the blast, that was why heroic people would throw themselves onto a grenade, sacrificing themselves to protect bystanders, and darn it, she was going to have to apologize to Chris for all the times she'd complained about the guy's stupid war documentaries, after all.

Besides. She wouldn't have time to throw a grenade. The minute she opened that door…

Claire blinked, suddenly looking at the door – the hinges that said it would open inward, the small space between the edge of the door and the corner of the wall, where someone really small could fit _behind_ the open door, and had a terrible idea.

She braced herself. "Sherry? I need you to stand over there." She nodded to the small bit of wall between the hinges of the softly shuddering door and the corner. "And when I give the signal, you need to open the door and _stay behind it_."

Sherry looked back and forth from the door to Claire. "But…"

Claire made herself smile confidently. Although from the worry in Sherry's eyes, she wasn't faking it very well. "It's okay. The zombies won't come after you if they don't see you."

Worry took on a tinge of exasperation. "It's not _that_ ," Sherry huffed. "What about _you_?"

Claire held up her gun and winked. "I can handle them. As long as I don't have a hand busy with the door."

Then she took a few measured steps back, raising the gun up to eye level. She didn't trust her aim if she backed up any farther, and she didn't dare miss.

 _It's okay. This is just like those target-shooting games in the arcade._

Meeting Sherry's eye for just a second, and took another deep breath. And nodded.

The door flew open almost as soon as Sherry turned the handle. The zombies didn't stumble as they came through – _of course they wouldn't, why did I expect it, it's not like a zombie's going to brace for impact_ – but the doorway limited their movement, and Claire was ready. Her first bullet shattered the face of the first zombie, and she quickly shifted her aim to the side, taking down the next before the first one had hit the ground…

Except that there were _more_ , pushing through behind the first two, and Claire was forced to give ground, backing down the hallway in an effort to keep just enough distance to stay out of lunging range. That threw her aim off, and her next bullet went high, and the next one too low and buried in the chest of the next zombie without doing more than slowing it for half a step, and oh no, she was _panicking_ , she knew that was the last thing she could afford to do but the pounding of her heart in her ears was getting louder…

"Hey! Over _here_!"

 _Oh no, Sherry,_ don't _…_

The little girl was standing in the open doorway behind the zombies, two tentacles arched over her shoulders like a hawk's mantled wings.

The zombies hesitated, apparently confused by another target so close. Gritting her teeth, Claire took the opportunity and shot the nearest in the head – but that turned the second-closest back to her, while the rearmost turned on Sherry-

Grimly, Claire blocked out _everything_ but the shambling figure in front of her; she couldn't help the girl if she was dead or bitten herself. She took a quick, calculated step backward, forcing the zombie to follow – and to stumble as its feet caught on the body of the one she'd just shot.

Her hands were shaking enough that she didn't dare try for another headshot, even this close. Instead, Claire went for the center of mass, planting three quick bullets in its torso. Not enough to kill, but enough to take it down temporarily, and it _had_ to be enough.

As the zombie fell, Claire blinked.

Sherry was… _dancing_ wasn't the right word, there was too much thin-lipped, desperate concentration involved. _Darting_ around the zombie, pausing just long enough for the zombie to turn towards her and start to lunge, then using her small size and better mobility to dodge sideways and around it, forcing it to miss, recover, and turn again before she flickered out of the way again.

Something was _itching_ at Claire as well, in the back of her head where the sense of the world that let her know where the tumblers of a lock had fallen mixed in with sight and sound and touch and her own kinesthetic sense of where-I-am.

 _Is she a Quincy?_

Except that didn't make sense, her earlier comments made it clear that Quincies were something she'd only learned about in school, and given her father's apparent attitudes…

 _Not the time for that!_ Shoving the thought to the back of her mind, Claire quickly finished off the zombie at her feet before it could either get up or try to snare her leg. Then she stepped over the fallen zombies and raised her gun again. With Sherry distracting the last of the zombies, Claire had plenty of time to steady her hands, choose her aim – and as the zombie straightened up after another failed lunge, she fired.

A glancing hit, but _enough_. It staggered and fell.

Slowly, Claire lowered the gun, startled to realize she was panting slightly and cold sweat was trickling down the side of her face. The world began to creep back in, a little at a time – she hadn't even realized that her field of vision had narrowed to the space right in front of her, or the way sound had muffled around her, as though she were underwater. And Sherry…

"You're okay!"

Sherry _thumped_ into her, and Claire barely got the gun out of the way in time, because the little girl didn't care, just squeezed her arms desperately around Claire's waist – and then they both jumped when the girl's tentacles tried to join the hug. Sherry quickly let go, backing away with wide eyes.

Claire almost laughed, even though she knew that she probably wouldn't be half so calm about it if not for the adrenaline still buzzing in her veins. Making her face as stern as she could, she looked the girl over carefully, checking for any scratches or bruises, before frowning at her. "What did you think you were _doing_? You scared me to death, jumping out like that! What if they'd gotten you?"

For just a moment, Sherry's lip trembled – and then tightened into a look of mulish determination. "What if they'd gotten _you_?" she demanded. "There were a lot of them! I had to do _something_!"

Claire hesitated for just a moment, and then realized she'd pretty much lost the argument already by hesitating. She sighed, trying to shake the residual tension out of her arms. "…Yeah. That was scary, huh?" she admitted. "But I did have a plan, Sherry. If they got too close, I was going to run down the hall and then shoot them while they followed." Reaching out, she ruffled the girl's hair, a gesture that turned into gently picking one of the matted clumps loose when Claire's fingers got tangled.

And yes, she distinctly felt the light hairs – tendrils? – moving under her fingers, which would probably have creeped her out on a normal day. Except that Sherry had jumped out next to a bunch of hungry zombies to help her, so her hindbrain could take a hike. Zombies and wall-smashing monsters were _enough_ to worry about.

Speaking of. "You ready to get moving?" Claire asked, reloading a fresh clip and shoving the nearly spent one into one of her vest pockets. She was _not_ going into the next nasty surprise with only two bullets.

Sherry nodded and moved around behind her again, taking up the rearguard as Claire moved to peek carefully out the door.

The mezzanine level was empty – the zombies must have _all_ followed her to the door when she'd first run through looking for the S.T.A.R.S. office. Letting herself relax slightly, Claire led Sherry out into the open – although both of them stayed away from the open-barred railing running along the inner edge as they circled the atrium of the main entrance.

The hairs along the back of Claire's neck were shivering, a constant, nagging sense of _something's not right here, look closer_. Which, zombie apocalypse, _not right_ was kind of a given right now. But this area should be relatively safe. Other than the five zombies they'd just dealt with, which she'd simply outrun the first time, she'd – killed? Did that even _apply_ to something that was for all intents and purposes effectively dead? – the rest…

Then they made the first turn, onto the portion of the mezzanine that ran along the back of the atrium, and Claire stopped abruptly.

She'd killed a zombie here. She _knew_ she had, because she vividly remembered almost falling over the railing when she'd accidentally dodged into it, and the panicked breathless moment as the world had seemed to freeze and she'd contemplated how utterly _ignominious_ it would be to die in the middle of a zombie apocalypse by falling off a balcony. Then desperation and dirty-tricks training had taken over, and she'd used the railing as a support while she slammed the heel of her foot into the zombie's kneecap, shattering it and dropping the zombie to the floor. Although her hands had been shaking so badly that it had taken her two shots to actually hit the head after that.

She'd put that one down for good. But now the body was gone from where she'd left it lying next to the emergency ladder. The carpeted floor still had the deep red stain where blood and viscera had oozed from the fallen zombie. But…

Slowly, Claire's eyes tracked the streaks of blood leading from the stain, across the mezzanine… and then straight up the wall, as though the zombie had been dragged away by a wall-climbing spider. In the dim light, from a distance, it had _almost_ looked like just a shadow on the wall. But now she could follow it all the way up to a circular window set a little bit below the ceiling – probably to improve lighting and maybe ventilation.

Claire looked down at the floor again. At the shards of broken glass glinting on blood-stained carpet.

 _It's not just zombies out there…_

"Claire?"

She jumped a bit – Sherry was so _quiet_ when she moved that if not for that sense of _presence_ behind her, Claire's brain could almost trick itself into thinking she was alone out here. The little girl was slowly looking from the carpet to the wall to the window and back, seemingly coming to much the same conclusion as Claire.

"There was something outside the window. Earlier," Sherry whispered. Her voice was surprisingly calm – but Claire felt a tug at her vest, as a small hand gripped the hem in the back.

 _It's not outside now_ , Claire concluded for her. Although maybe it was. From the look of things, it had come through the window, grabbed the zombie, and dragged it back out again…

"We'll be careful," she whispered back, shrugging her shoulder slightly to make sure that the satchel of possibly useful things she was carrying wouldn't get in her way if she had to maneuver quickly.

But they made it around the far corner of the mezzanine without anything leaping from the walls or ceiling at them. Although now that she'd noticed, Claire couldn't help noticing the _lack_ of zombie corpses, both here and on the level below. Either a headshot wasn't a permanent kill after all – and she thought she might _cry_ if that were the case – or something was collecting the bodies. Or maybe just eating them.

She wasn't sure that that wasn't an even scarier idea.

Even so, she stopped and checked the blueprints she'd brought before they moved on. There were two doors here, and she knew there would be more zombies wherever they went. The less detours they took, the less the chance of running into trouble they couldn't handle, or just running out of ammunition.

Okay. It looked like the inner door – the one nearest them – was the closest to Irons's office and that part of the blueprint where there _should_ have been a bit more. Good. Folding up the blueprints, Claire tucked them back into her pocket and waved silently for Sherry to follow her as they approached the door.

Before opening it, Claire took a moment to press her ear to the door, and blinked. Distant and muffled, she thought she heard the familiar _thump, thump, thump_ of zombies trying to get through a closed door… but she couldn't feel any impact on the old wood.

With a nod to Sherry to warn the girl to be ready, Claire turned the handle and pushed, just a little.

Nothing lunged at her as the door cracked open, and she risked swinging it a little farther. On the other side was a short hallway, noticeably posher than the more utilitarian north wing, complete with nice carpeting on the floor and paintings on the wall. There was only one door visible, with a sign above it reading _PRESS ROOM_ – which explained the fancier surroundings, at least. But the hallway made a sharp turn to the right at the end.

The thumping was louder, and now she could make out the shuffle-drag of shambling feet and low moaning. Which seemed to be coming from around that turn.

Luckily, that nice carpet muffled their footsteps as Claire and Sherry made their way down the hall. Passing by the press room door with nothing more than a quick look to be _sure_ that the thing was closed – the last thing she wanted was something coming out behind them – Claire made for that turn in the hallway. Pressing close against the inner wall, she took a moment to calm herself, and then peeked around the corner.

And had to bite back a yelp that might very well have killed them, given the three zombies gathered not eight feet farther down the hall, attempting to shamble their way through a large door set into the far wall.

A door with a sign reading _CHIEF OF POLICE_ above it.

 _Well, drat._

This wouldn't be quite as complicated as getting through the door leading to the mezzanine. The zombies weren't aware of her yet, which meant she could get the drop on them; she should be able to take at least one down that way. But that still left two, and while the nice wide hallway would make dodging around them easier, it also meant they would spread out rather than tangling each other up…

Movement drew her attention downward as Sherry squirmed around to peek around the corner herself, ghost-quiet. The girl studied the zombies for a long moment, looking… less _thoughtful_ than _intent_ , like a cat at a mousehole.

Then she drew back a little and looked up at Claire. " _I can distract them_ ," she mouthed, making a sort of circling motion with one hand.

Claire's gut reaction said _no way in hell_. Sherry was a _kid_ , and a scared one – odd intensity or not, her eyes were wide and her face was pale, and those tentacles kept twitching with tension.

Except… Sherry was right. If the zombies' attention went the other direction, the odds of Claire being able to pick them off got a lot better. And Sherry had proven pretty conclusively that she could pretty much run circles around one or two zombies all day.

More than that… much as Claire hated to think it, she couldn't _afford_ to keep Sherry in the back and protected at every step. She was pretty close to her limit as it was. More than that, _Sherry_ couldn't afford for Claire to do that. She was in this mess as deep as any of them. Kid or no, she had the right – she _needed_ – to be able to make her own decisions about the risks she was willing to take, as long as she thought them through.

That almost made Claire laugh. After all, she and Chris had grown up under those rules – less _do as I say_ and more _don't do anything you don't_ know _you can pull off_.

Straightening her shoulders, Claire lifted her gun, peeking around the corner to check the position of the nearest of the three zombies. Then she looked down and Sherry and nodded.

" _Be careful_ ," she mouthed back.

For just a second, Sherry beamed like she'd just gotten straight A's on her report card. Then the sunny grin vanished into stubborn concentration, as she carefully slipped around the corner.

She didn't go straight for the zombies, though. Instead, she stayed close to the wall, letting the thick carpet and her own light weight muffle her footsteps as she darted around behind them, circling to the far side and putting a little distance between herself and the zombies, so they'd have to _move_ to get to her.

And then she stuck out a tongue and pulled her lower eyelid down while blowing a raspberry at the zombies. "Hey! You missed me!"

After that, things went… very fast.

The moment the zombies turned to face Sherry, Claire rounded the corner. Three quick steps brought her right behind the nearest, and she leveled the gun at the back of its head with less than a foot to spare and fired. That got the attention of the other two, and she managed to put the next one down while they hesitated. But the other one had turned and was starting to move towards her-

Sherry darted in and _smacked_ the zombie with one of her tentacles, darting back out of range again as it slowed and turned towards her, and Claire moved in close and shot it – shoulder, not head, _darn_ it. But two more shots brought it down, and a fourth _kept_ it that way.

It took a moment for events to sink in – and then Sherry whooped. "We did it!"

Claire let out a breath, feeling her hands shake a little. She would probably have to burn her clothes once they got out of here – she'd shot the zombies from so close that the blow-back had splattered blood and bits of other things all over her. Which, darn it, she _liked_ this vest. Although she was mostly relieved that she'd kept her mouth shut, because _ew_.

Also terrifying, but frankly she preferred to focus on the ew, because getting the shakes now wouldn't help anything.

Rallying, she smiled back at the girl. "We did!" And better yet, now they could get _out_ of this exposed hallway and maybe find some much-overdue answers…

The door was locked.

Claire blinked, startled for a moment; most of the building had been surprisingly open for a police department, so much so that she'd gotten used to it.

 _Then again, if this started in the evening, maybe he'd already left for the night?_

Except, Sherry had said that she thought she'd _seen_ the man…

Frowning, Claire crouched down on her heels to put the lock at eye level. Not that she could _see_ anything, but for some reason it was easier to focus that way. "Cover me?" she requested.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sherry nod enthusiastically, before the girl turned around, putting her back to Claire as she began industriously scanning the hallway to either side. Including, Claire noted with a touch of respect, the walls and ceilings. Clearly, Sherry was still thinking about the broken window and the blood on the wall.

Which meant Claire could focus. Good. She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth a few times, and let her world narrow to the small rectangular hole in the door – odd, that Irons was using an old-fashioned lock and not a newer electronic one – and _reached_.

Immediately, she felt something odd. There was the keyhole, there were the tumblers – but there was something _in_ the lock, blocking it. Frowning, Claire reached farther, to the other side of the door. She could feel the other side of the lock, the open space, a small circular disc of metal on the other end of the blockage…

 _He left the key in the lock._

A sudden, sharp shock of _fury_ broke her concentration, pulling Claire's psychic senses back as she stared open-mouthed at the lock, ears ringing as rage simmered.

 _That… coward!_

Because there was _no point_ in locking the door. Zombies were stopped by _closed_ doors, whether they were locked or not, and if Sherry had really seen Irons earlier than he certainly had figured that much out. The only reason to _lock_ the door… would be to keep _other survivors_ from reaching his sanctuary.

 _You are_ not _getting away with this._

Grabbing onto the force of her own anger, Claire reached out again. Her little gift wasn't strong enough to actually _turn_ the key. But anger had always bolstered her power just a bit – enough for her to _shove_ , and push the key out of the lock entirely. As her head twinged in warning, she heard the muffled clatter and thump as jangling metal hit a carpeted floor on the other side.

After that, shifting the tumblers into the open position was easy, and she turned the handle the moment she felt the lock click open.

For a mind-gone-gone blank, awful moment, she realized she'd just made a terrible mistake. _Someone_ was inside, Irons or not, and they likely weren't going to react well to being disturbed. She dropped down into a crouch as the door swung open, snatching up her gun again and raising it even as she tried to get below the most likely line of fire.

Except… nothing happened.

Claire blinked, slowly lowering her gun when she realized there was no response. Carefully, she rose back to her feet, taking a step inside and slowly looking around as Sherry followed close behind her.

 _Dark_ , was her first thought – particularly as Sherry let the big heavy door close with a _thump_ behind them, and pulled the handle to be certain the latch engaged. Not completely dark – an overhead light gleamed down on a massive desk in the back. But the light was dim, and there were no windows to help fight the shadows that gathered in every corner.

 _I wonder if that's deliberate?_ The chief of police did sometimes have to keep odd hours; maybe the lack of window was meant to help skew the sense of time passing. Although she shuddered at the thought of spending any amount of extended time in this closed-off, dark room. That _couldn't_ be good for anyone's state of mind.

Then again, given the unsettling implications in Chris's notes… maybe she shouldn't be so surprised.

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Claire slowly stepped around the small interview table and the industrial chairs next to the door – and then yelped as something seemed to _loom_ out of the wall beside the big desk in the back. Her gun was half-raised before she realized that what she was looking at were animal heads – planetary locals and others, carefully stuffed and reconstructed into an unsettling semblance of life, the dim light gleaming on glass eyes.

 _Right over his_ desk _? Ugh. Can't say I'm impressed by the guy's taste_. Especially with the blobs on the wall behind the desk resolving into some sort of Surrealist painting that really belonged on the cover of a bad horror movie.

All of which was avoiding the primary question.

 _Where is he?_

 _Someone_ had to be in here! You couldn't lock a door and _leave the key in the lock_ on the inside unless you _were_ inside. Well, unless you were a psychokinetic with a knack for telekinesis, maybe, but Chris would have mentioned it if his boss were a Quincy – and what was the point of setting up such an elaborate deception when there were _zombies_ all over the place?

 _And those three zombies must have followed him to the door, I can't think of any other reason for them to have been acting like that unless they knew prey was on the other side._

But… there wasn't anyone in here. Just creepy taxidermied heads, and a bad painting, and that ostentatiously oversized desk with the giant ergonomic chair behind it…

There was blood on the desk.

Very slowly, Claire approached, feeling her heart in her throat. The carpeting ended just short of the desk, she noted distantly – the sound of her footsteps changed as she stepped around it and in for a closer look.

The blood… didn't look very old; it gleamed in the dim light like it would still be wet to the touch. But something seemed odd about it. Not the consistency or color, although it was hard to judge the latter. More… the shape?

 _It's pooled. Not smeared or streaked. Like he left something bloody on the desk for a couple of minutes, more than a wound or something._

Which… wasn't necessarily an ominous sign, she reminded herself fiercely. After all, if Irons had made it this far, he surely had been forced to go through at least a few of the zombies. And she'd proven herself that, assuming a lot of nerve, desperation, and good aim, you _could_ take a zombie down with a knife.

Except that the shape was all wrong for that. She couldn't think of _any_ weapon that would collect that much blood on it. But if Irons – or whoever had retreated in here – had stopped to treat a wound, there should have been more of a mess. Splatters everywhere, the wrapper for sterile bandages out of a med kit… and _where was he_?

"…Claire?"

Startled, she turned. Sherry was standing on tiptoe by the bit of blank wall behind the desk, between that creepy painting and the corner. Fingers and tentacles were carefully tracing a straight line up the blank wall, following something Claire couldn't see.

"I think there's something _weird_ here," the girl said, frowning in concentration as she shifted her shoulders to let one of her upper tentacles stretch up higher. Claire pitied anyone trying to keep a cookie jar out of the kid's reach after this.

Shoving the whimsical thought aside – she _was_ tired, more than she'd thought; definitely needed to keep an eye on that, this was a bad situation to get punch-drunk in – she joined Sherry at the wall. She still couldn't _see_ anything, even when she twisted back and forth to keep from blocking that dim light. But when she rested her fingers on the wall…

A hairline-thin crack, running up the wall. With minute cracks and scratches at the edge, as though the surfaces slid against each other.

Claire blinked in disbelief, and then reached down to that oddly bare patch of floor behind the desk.

Yep. The floor just a little bit more worn down, right there. Like someone walked _through_ the wall on a semi-regular basis.

Claire groaned. She couldn't help it. "Please tell me this is some kind of a joke."

Sherry blinked at her. "Why?"

She grinned ruefully. "Just… a secret door. How cliché can it _get_?"

Sherry giggled at that. "Dad says the best place to hide something is to put it somewhere that people would feel too stupid about to look."

Claire blinked. "That's… pretty good advice," she admitted, maybe a little reluctantly. She wasn't sure that she really wanted to be thinking anything positive about Sherry's parents right now. But she had to admit that it _was_ pretty good advice, if you really wanted to hide something. She still remembered the time her father had hidden Chris's shoes in the freezer after tripping over them in the hallway one time too many.

And now that she was actually thinking about it… it kind of raised uneasy questions about what Sherry's dad had been interested in hiding.

 _Things like this door?_

Frowning, Claire concentrated, trying to feel with her psychokinetic sense through the door to the mechanism that would control it. At first, she didn't find anything, and she had to slowly move her fingers up and down the wall – and then across it, when that only yielded something that felt kind of like hinges, but not a latch. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sherry screwing up her face in concentration as two of her tentacles copied the movement of Claire's hand… and in the back of her mind, Claire could feel a little ripple, like someone was very tentatively peering over her shoulder and watching what Claire's psychokinesis was doing. And trying to copy it, too.

 _She_ is _a telekinetic!_ Claire had spent enough time around her family to recognize the feeling, when it was this close. Which… raised some unsettling possibilities, given that Claire still didn't think the girl was a _Quincy_. Or hadn't been before this. For one thing, Quincies were usually very careful to train their kids from a young age.

For another, there was the whole _wants to study Quincy genetics_ thing. And that vaccine.

 _But… that can't be right. We don't have the sort of technology that can do anything like_ that _! Surely people would have heard about it if we did, right…?_

Then again. Clearly, it had happened. And right now, it _didn't matter_ , except that anything that gave Sherry an added edge was probably a good thing…

Her mind brushed against something that seemed bright and _fluid_ in her mind, lighting up in her mental sense in the way that only metal could.

 _Gotcha!_

She could feel a complex sequence of levers in the wall, probably leading towards some sort of ridiculously complex secret set of triggers that were normally used to open the door. However, on _this_ end the mechanism was simply a latch, one that Claire immediately shifted her focus onto.

It was… not heavy, exactly, but there was a surprising amount of pressure on it, like it was being pulled constantly. It was almost too much for her limited gift to move, and for a minute Claire wondered if she'd have to trace the pulley lines to their triggers and get this thing open the old-fashioned way-

But then a mental _shove_ that made sparks dance behind her eyes for a minute pushed the latch not back but _up_ – and it gave all at once with the rasp of wood sliding along metal as a section of the wall suddenly slid away, revealing a dark hallway following the other side of the wall beyond.

Taking a minute to catch her breath, Claire eyed the new passage. This was definitely part of the old museum, a part that didn't seem to have gotten the renovation that the rest had received. The floor was dark wood, with wood paneling and actual _stone_ along the walls, and she really, really had to wonder about who'd designed the original building.

Once the strain-headache had faded away enough that she wasn't getting little flashes across the back of her eyes, Claire readied her gun and looked down at Sherry, who was eyeing the open passageway with a mix of trepidation and excited curiosity. "Stay behind me, and be _very quiet_ ," she whispered. Because one thing was for sure – whether it was Irons waiting for them in there or someone else, whoever it was would likely be less than happy about someone following them into their secret sanctuary.

Claire would almost prefer to be worrying about zombies. Zombies didn't carry guns.

Before she could overthink herself into a crippling case of the shakes, Claire carefully peered around the opening, and then cautiously stepped through. What she'd taken for a hallway actually turned out to be a short segment that almost immediately ended in a steep staircase leading downward into darkness. Gingerly, Claire moved to the edge and glanced down. There was a very dim light at the bottom, she guessed – ever so faintly, she could make out a landing where the stairs turned, just enough light coming from something around the bend to hint at the general location of the wall and the flat space where the stairs momentarily stopped.

 _That's farther down than I thought… a basement?_

Claire eased her way one step at a time down the stairs. The very, very _steep_ stairs that could probably pass for a sloping ladder, and it was all she could do to fight the urge to turn around and just go down the stairs backwards, using her hands to guide her. Especially when the backs of her calves kept hitting the stair above and forcing her foot out so that she could only really get the heel of her foot on the steps. But damned if she was going to take her hands off her gun right now. She just took her time, readjusting her position so that she was coming down sideways, making certain she had secure footing before ever shifting her weight even the slightest. Sherry _had_ just turned around to descend the stairs like a ladder, for which Claire did not blame the kid. This was bad enough with an adult's legs.

She wanted to sigh with relief on reaching the landing, but bit it back as she pressed her back to the wall and peered around the corner. Another length of stairs – _definitely_ going down to basement level, if not farther, then – and at the bottom…

Claire blinked, frowning. It was hard to make out any details on the door, with harsh pale industrial light seeping out around the edges and casting the door itself into heavy shadow. But what she could make out was thick, and heavy – the sort of high-security door used for bank vaults and military installations. Not that the added security was much help, given that someone had left it cracked a few inches open, pouring light into the small landing at the bottom.

Eyes narrowed, Claire ghosted her way down the stairs, moving as silently as physically possible, and trying to angle her path so that she'd never be directly in the line of sight of anyone watching through that narrow opening. Once at the bottom, she abandoned dignity and dropped down to her hands and knees behind the door, hopefully putting herself below any line of sight, and gingerly peeked through the opening.

On the other side, she could see stone walls and utilitarian shelves; a heavy wooden table, with something on it. A plain ceiling, with a bare lightbulb that left spots on her vision in the split-second her eyes landed on it before she could look away.

No movement. No sound. No breathing, and – thankfully – no bullets coming at her. The room _felt_ empty.

Not literally, unfortunately, and for a moment Claire _desperately_ wished she were a stronger Quincy, the type who could walk out on a high-rise skyscraper and simply _sense_ the whole spaceport around them. But without a specific target within her line of sight, her range was barely a foot or two at best, and that was without the mass of metal that was the door blocking out her sense of just about everything else.

A soft whisper of movement brought her attention to Sherry as the girl eeled past Claire into the space behind the door as well. Tentacles on her back bracing themselves against the wall, Sherry reached out and firmly – silently – gripped the outside handle of the door, and then looked at Claire with a determined sort of expectation that Claire understood immediately.

Easing back, Claire climbed back to her feet and readied her gun again, carefully taking several slow breaths as she mentally sketched out the little of the room she'd seen and tried to plan her next move. Then she looked at Sherry and nodded sharply.

Tentacles flexed, gripping stone almost like an octopus's suckers as sneakered heels dug into the floor and Sherry threw all of her weight and strength into pulling the door open. Even so, it was clearly hard – high-security doors were not designed for a little girl to haul, even partially opened. But the door creaked open just enough for Claire to dive through, hitting the ground with her shoulder and rolling as she prayed that if anyone _was_ waiting inside, the sudden entrance would throw them off long enough for her to roll and come up on her knee with her gun raised and sweeping the room, a move her brother had drilled her and _drilled_ her in until she could and had done it after accidentally falling off her bed in her sleep, even though she was _never_ going to tell him about that one…

After a moment, Claire blinked and slowly straightened, eyes sweeping the room again but with the gun slightly lowered. As she'd thought, there was no sign of life anywhere inside. Just the glare of the overhead light gleaming on carefully labeled boxes and bottles, a small side table with vaguely surgical-looking instruments on it… and, in the back corner, a trapdoor with the hatch left open, showing a ladder descending into darkness.

 _You're kidding me._ Another _secret passage? This is getting ridiculous…_

"Claire?"

She was turning away from the dark hole in the floor before she even thought about it, spurred by the note of pure distress in Sherry's wavering voice. Seeing what Sherry was staring at, she mentally swore at herself for being so blasted focused on _threats_ that she hadn't paid attention to anything else.

Lying on that big wooden table was a woman – no, a girl, probably still in her teens. She was startlingly pretty – flawless skin, bright gold hair tumbling in thick waves around an even-featured face; the white dress she was wearing only accentuated the whole package.

She was also dead. If the utter stillness and too-pale translucence of her face wasn't enough to prove that, the bloody red stain on her chest like a mockery of a rose said everything. And far too much.

"I know her," Sherry whispered. Her hands reached out and latched onto Claire's shirt the minute Claire came close, but her eyes never wavered from the corpse. "She's the mayor's daughter – she was always volunteering at the library, she never got mad at me even when I forgot to return a book once…" She swallowed hard. "It wasn't a zombie that got her. Was it."

"I don't think so," Claire said grimly, kneeling down to wrap her arm around Sherry's shoulders.

Think, nothing. Zombies didn't bite in the middle of the chest, right over the heart. That had been done by a bullet. And then someone had brought the body down here, where…

Claire wasn't sure, but she thought she might know what this place was. There'd been a _lot_ of taxidermied animals up in the office.

 _That sick, sick…_

Sherry shuddered. "…Mom always told me to stay away from Mr. Irons," she whispered.

Claire's only warning was a sudden glassiness in Sherry's eyes and a trembling in her lower lip before the girl suddenly burst into tears. "I want to go _home_!" she wailed.

Claire couldn't help wincing, both at the sharp sound right next to her ear and in the awareness that if there was anyone down that hatch, they probably knew someone was following them now. But she shoved it out of her mind for the moment. Reaching out, she tugged Sherry, turning her around so she wasn't looking at the body anymore and hugging her close.

"I know," she said. And she did. This was by far and away the worst day of _her_ life. And odds were good that her brother was safe. She hadn't woken up to find herself with extra appendages, seeing people she knew and liked dead or worse, with no idea where her parents were. Sherry darned well _deserved_ a tantrum or two, even if she'd been a trooper so far.

Claire waited until the worst of the tears had faded into tired sniffles, then tucked the girl into a sheltered corner between two cabinets – and Claire was not going to wonder what was in those cabinets. Shucking off her vest, Claire draped it over Sherry's shoulders. Without the vest, it was a little cold, maybe, but still bearable – and _she_ wasn't tiny and going around with a hole in the back of her shirt.

A quick search of the room also revealed a large cover sheet folded up in a corner. Claire almost gave that to Sherry as well, but one glance at the suspicious rusty-brown stains across the fabric changed her mind. Instead, she draped it over the table and the body. It wouldn't do much for the poor girl, but at least this way Sherry wouldn't have to stare at her corpse.

Once that was done, Claire crouched down in front of Sherry again. The girl looked blearily up at her, human hands pulling the vest close around her while her tentacles hugged her legs close. She wasn't crying anymore, but it was obvious from the look on her face that Sherry had had _enough_ for one day.

 _Can't blame her. Poor kid._ On top of all the trauma, which as far as Claire cared was _already_ too much to expect a schoolgirl to cope with half as well as Sherry had managed… well, if Claire's sense of a timeline was right, Sherry must have woken up from her vaccine hours before Claire had gotten into the city, and she'd made it to the police station all on her own. To say nothing of whatever strain the transformation had put on her body. Sherry _needed_ a break.

"I need to check out whatever's down there," Claire said, a little reluctantly, nodding at the open hatch in the back and the shadows inside. "You stay here and rest a bit, okay?"

And despite everything, Sherry blinked and frowned a little, moving as though she were thinking about standing up again even as her tentacles tightened their protective hug slightly. "But…"

"No buts." Claire smiled a bit to soften her words. "You've been through a lot. It's okay to take a break when you need it, okay? That way you can be ready for anything." A chilling thought hit her, and she held back a shiver even as she gladly added it to her argument. "Besides, someone needs to stay here and guard the door. We're going to have to come back anyway, if only to tell Leon where we are. I'm not sure that hatch opens from the bottom."

Leon. Was he still okay? How long had it been, anyway? Claire had lost all track of time, and like an idiot, she wasn't wearing a watch. But she had to believe that… well, that he still had some time left. He'd promised to signal them before he had to… do something permanent. If he had enough warning time.

 _It's a police radio. The signal can get down here – right?_

And horrible as it was, it was better to think about that than the panicky bit in the back of her mind, wondering if the secret door in Irons's office had closed, and were they trapped down here already? Which was stupid – she'd cheated it open once, she could do it again, but…

For just a second, Claire closed her eyes, trying to force her thoughts to calm down and focus again. If it was closed, then that was that, and she still needed to figure out what was hidden down here either way.

When she opened her eyes again, Sherry was studying her face worriedly. But when the girl met Claire's eyes, she slowly nodded. "Okay," she whispered. "But… if Mr. Irons is down there…"

Claire's smile had way too many teeth in it to pass for friendly, she was pretty sure. Claire suspected Sherry wouldn't mind, though. "Don't worry. My brother taught me all _sorts_ of ways to deal with bad men," she said. "If he tries anything, I'll be more than happy to demonstrate them."

Sherry seemed to think about that for a minute, and then her eyes narrowed, a sharp flash of something steely in them. " _Good_ ," she said fiercely. "You get him!"

Claire let her smile soften into an affectionate grin as she tousled the girl's hair, very gently fingercombing smooth the matted lock her hand found and watching as the freed strands drifted ever so slightly in the still air. "Keep good watch for me, okay?" she said, pushing herself back up to her feet.

The ladder leading down was cold and hard under her hands – and very noticeably free of rust or dust or slime or any other of the things that just accumulated over time. This section wasn't particularly old, then – or if it was, someone was careful to keep it well-maintained, and Claire doubted anything hidden behind this many layers of misdirection was likely to be on the cleaning staff's top priority list. It was also much shorter than she'd expected; she'd only descended a few feet when her foot touched down on something much wider that rattled with a flatter, _deeper_ sound than the ladder rungs.

Stepping down, Claire turned to survey her surroundings, although she kept one wary hand on the ladder. She was standing on an industrial-style catwalk, with dim red emergency lights running along the sides and thin handrails the only thing marking the boundary between it and the void of dark open space below. Claire couldn't see anything below, but she thought she heard water, and there was a damp chill in the air that made her shiver a bit and momentarily regret leaving her vest with Sherry.

 _Is this a part of the sewer system?_

She couldn't imagine what else it would be, but something about that struck her as _odd_. Yes, the sewer system had to have a certain level of extra space, to handle runoff from a heavy rain without flooding the streets and to allow the occasional inspection and repair crew down for things that maintenance drones might not be able to handle, but this was way too much.

 _Not my problem at the moment_ , she reminded herself, finally letting go of the ladder and readjusting her satchel of just-in-case supplies; it had shifted during the climb and was binding her arm in a way that _probably_ wouldn't obstruct her ability to aim, but she didn't want to take chances.

Even making her best effort at silence, the metal under her feet clanked audibly as she made her way along the catwalk, every step vibrating up and down the length of the walkway. Claire winced, but kept going – in fact, she sped up. Stealth was a joke down here anyway; the catwalk ran in a straight line and was open on all sides, anyone who cared to look was going to see her. Although at least zombies weren't likely to be a problem down here…

She blinked, suddenly registering a light up ahead. Slowing and softening her step as much as she could, she tried to give her eyes a moment to adjust after the darkness.

When they did, she stopped short, staring.

 _That's… a shuttle_.

Not the kind meant for atmospheric or intrasystem travel, but a city shuttle, designed with a high-powered engine but locked to a set of magnetic rails to keep it from careening off course in a heavily populated area. At the moment, it was locked into a charging station, but she could see its rails leading off into a tunnel in the wall.

She could also clearly make out the distinctive red-and-white logo of Umbrella Corp on its side.

 _Well, well. Isn't that interesting…_

Then the darkness shattered with a piercing scream.

* * *

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

* * *

AN: It's canon that Leon jokes about the whole "zombie apocalypse on my first day on the job" mess – both during the outbreak, and even years later. Which, if you ask me, is part of why the guy managed to survive in the first place, and how he's managed to stay sane and reasonable dealing with all the other messes since: keeping your sense of humor is important, and he clearly appreciates the ridiculous irony of the whole thing. And, well, getting someone to laugh is a very good way of defusing a tense situation.

Do zombie dogs bark: possibly. Apparently lobotomized dogs will, given the correct stimuli. Although I freely admit, I haven't hunted down that particular research to verify. Sometimes the things people do For Science! goes beyond terrifying and into _what is wrong with you people?_ But, given that the canon RE2 zombie dogs do bark, I decided to go with it.

Vanishing zombie bodies – I admit, this was prompted in part by the fact that when you fight Birkin on the elevator, the body is gone when you come back. Which _should_ be hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck-stand-up, oh-no level of _creepy_ – except, of course, by then you're actually getting used to the fact that monster bodies vanish if you leave the area. Limitation of the gaming system at the time, I think. But I took that event and decided to play "what if they really are vanishing?"

As for why Claire can't afford to keep Sherry protected – there are several factors at work here, one of them being that Claire has to concentrate on survival herself, and having a partner improves both of their odds considerably. But another?

While we don't know all of the factors involved in developing PTSD, there are a few patterns that people have noted. One is that people who have a chance to be actively engaged in saving themselves tend to have much better odds of coming out of a crisis psychologically intact. (And tend to be more likely to survive in the first place.) So paradoxically, allowing Sherry to have a _job to do_ is going to give the kid far better chances, in the long run, of making it out okay.


	3. Widening Web

AN: I would advise counting on no more than one chapter a week. I've told myself for three days in a row that I needed to post this, and only now found the time. (On the plus side, Nano is going very well?)

* * *

 **CHAPTER THREE**

 **Widening Web**

* * *

Leon actually _felt_ the bristly hairs that he didn't think were really hair brushing his face in the half-moment as he ducked and dove, fingers latching onto the edge of the grate and every muscle in his arms, shoulders and back straining to their limit as he half-lunged, half-hauled himself through the door. The water dragged at his feet, making him stumble to one knee – but far enough through that he was able to twist around, grab the door, and slam it shut, the latch falling into place with a _clack_.

A long leg poked between the bars, sharp-edged claws scratching at the stones, and Leon pushed himself back up to his feet, sloshing a few feet farther away to get himself out of reach.

After a long moment passed, the massive shadow with far too many long legs radiating out from a central core seemed to give up, scuttling along the bars until it reached the walls and vanished into the gloom again.

Leon let out a shaky breath, hoped _desperately_ that he wouldn't end up needing to backtrack that way any time soon, and took a moment to look around and assess the new section of the tunnels – this time studying the shadows in the corners of the ceiling _much_ more carefully.

No twitching shadows this time – but unlike the previous section, he noted with relief, there was a dry walkway running down either side of the tunnel. The water only came up to mid-shins, but he didn't like the way it dragged at his feet and slowed him down. Not to mention…

 _Do not wonder what's in the water,_ he reminded himself, as he sloshed his way over to the walkway and stepped up. _Do_ not _wonder what's in the water. And definitely don't think about how much you'd like to shoot whatever idiot thought that putting it there was a_ good idea _._

The sheer _vehemence_ in that thought made Leon pause, and he almost laughed. _And_ do _give yourself some time to calm down before you try to deal with normal people again_ , he thought wryly. Violence was not normally his preferred response to stress. It couldn't be; if you were a cop, you were going to be stressed, and the right to bear and use arms carried with it a responsibility to _avoid_ using them if at all possible.

Besides. He was fairly sure there'd been something in the briefing about some sort of native critter that looked a lot like a spider the size of a horse. They were supposed to be relatively shy, but the planet had been settled for a good several generations at this point; plenty of time for them to move into a nice, quiet ecological niche under the city.

So those things _probably_ weren't actually giant mutant spiders. No matter what his nerves were screaming.

 _Dammit, Ada – where did you_ go _?_

Now that he was out of the water and out of the reach of any zombie fish or whatever else this mad city was going to turn up next, Leon paused and looked the tunnel over again, trying to get a sense of his options. He'd been following Ada based on small clues and traces, like the partially open door he'd just fled through. But he was painfully aware that the trail was a tenuous one; he'd had to fall back on guesswork and luck more than once already, and at this point he wasn't even sure he was following her anymore.

Not to mention, he had to keep his eyes open for a way _out_ of the sewer. He wasn't particularly worried about escaping per se – any sewer that so clearly had been built for people to move through had to have _some_ way for those people to get in and out. But depending on where the exit let out…

Leon really didn't want to have to cross the city _again_. Especially not on foot this time. Once had been more than enough.

At least he could see down here. He hadn't exactly had the chance to pick up his assigned gear, and the little scavenging he'd managed going through the department hadn't turned up any night-goggles. He had a flashlight, but that would be as good as announcing his presence to anything that saw the light. And he already knew that zombies hunted at least partially based on vision.

But someone had decided to install lights down here in the sewers, for who only knew _what_ reasons. It wasn't much, but now that he'd adapted to the low light conditions, he could see fairly well. Although he was going to be keeping an even warier eye on the shadows from here on out…

Leon blinked, looking closer. There, on the wall partway down this section of sewer. What he'd taken for a flaw in the stonework at first glance…

A ladder, leading up to a dark circle on the ceiling that was almost invisible behind the glare of the lights on either side.

Leon allowed himself a sigh of relief as he noted the dim green glow of an exit sign. While he'd like to have _words_ for whatever planner had decided to put the sign on the ceiling rather than at eye level where it was supposed to be, at least he'd found a way out. And if he hadn't gotten completely turned around down here – he didn't think he had, but underground tunnels and artificial light could throw anyone – then the exit should come out either inside or right next to the police station.

 _Okay. So we've got a way out, at least. Now I just need to… huh?_

As he started to set off down the hallway, Leon's foot brushed what he'd taken in the darkness to be a loose brick or a lump of something he was better off not thinking too hard about. The rattling, scraping sound of metal on stone told him that he'd assumed wrong.

Frowning, he crouched down, gingerly turning the object over. Odds were that it was nothing, just a piece of junk that had fallen through a grate and gotten washed up here during a heavy rainstorm at some point. But he'd had it drilled into him: _always_ pay attention. You never knew what odd detail might suddenly be the key to saving someone's life.

 _Oh._

Apparently there had been a sign at eye level, after all. It just wasn't there anymore.

Very carefully, he picked the sign up. The letters were dark, several missing their covers entirely while others were riddled with cracks from the force that had twisted the case into a bow. On the back, he could see wires poking out from where the sign had been attached to a power source, along with – as he turned it towards the light to get a better look – black scoring along the back. If he were to guess… those were the traces of sparks, given that the wires looked like they'd been torn loose by raw force.

Leon tilted his head up, narrowing his eyes as he studied the wall more carefully this time. Now that he'd moved closer, and knew to look for it, he could see where the sign had been attached to the sewer wall, and even make out the wires still protruding from the cable that must have been run down to supply power and charge the sign's back-up battery.

 _Note to self: stay away from those, they're likely still live. Could make climbing out of here tricky…_

The ladder itself was warped.

Slowly, Leon set the broken sign back down on the ground, rather than dropping it, before rising to his feet again and stepping closer to inspect the damage. It looked like something had grabbed the ladder and _pulled_ it loose – the bottom had come completely free of the wall, and there were distinctive bends in the vertical rungs on either side, at a height a little above Leon's head, that looked unsettlingly like handholds. The ladder curved away from the wall at the bottom, ever so slightly, and there was gravel on the walkway under it marking bits of cement and stone that had come loose when the bolts holding the ladder in place tore free of the wall. A little higher up, the bolts had managed to hold, and the ladder itself looked like it was still stable, at least…

Leon looked at the bent metal of the ladder again and fought back a shudder.

He hadn't forgotten that hole in the jail wall – or the warped bars on the cell door. But since he'd come down here following Ada, he hadn't seen any more signs of structural destruction. And frankly, he'd been more interested in finding Ada and getting _out_ of here than in chasing down anything that could do that. So he'd breathed a tentative sigh of relief and prayed that whatever the thing was, it wasn't going to be his problem.

Apparently, he might have spoken too soon.

 _Lovely_.

Which was all the more reason to find Ada and leave, now that he'd found a slightly damaged but still functional way out of the sewers.

Frowning, Leon assessed his options. This segment of the sewers was relatively short, and ended with another grate sectioning off this area. The grating had two gates, one on either side of the tunnel to match the walkways. But this time, both of the grates were closed.

 _Meaning it's not likely Ada went that way_. Not impossible – but up until now, he'd been following a track of open gates. He didn't know if that meant Ada was deliberately leaving a trail, or even if she'd been the one to open those gates – but if these were closed, it was reasonable to guess that she hadn't passed through them.

The ladder was a possibility – but Leon suspected Ada wouldn't have left just yet. She'd gone into the sewers for a reason, even if he had no clue what that could be. But he really doubted she'd take the risk of coming all the way down here, just to climb out again the moment she found an alternative exit.

Which left the opening in the tunnel wall about halfway between the ladder and the grate. Leon had initially taken it for an alcove for storing equipment and access valves – he'd passed several already on his way here. But given that he didn't see anywhere else Ada might have gone from here…

After a quick check to verify that all the splashing hadn't caused any damage to the firing mechanism, Leon readied his gun and approached the opening, staying close to the wall and moving as quickly and quietly as he could. At the corner, he paused, trying to soften his breathing as much as possible as he listened intently – he'd already had one of those not-spiders jump at him from an alcove once, he'd really rather not repeat that particular experience.

But for the moment, at least, he couldn't hear anything over the soft whisper of water behind him and the occasional _plip_ of a droplet falling from some pipe in need of a resealing job. Leon allowed himself a silent sigh, and then stepped out into the open, gun leveled and ready.

"… _shit_ ," he breathed, staring at the massive splat of blood on the wall and the dark form lying crumpled on the floor beneath it.

Leon took a moment to check that the immediate area was secure – huh, so this _was_ a corridor. And dry-floored at that, with a small culvert topped with a grate running down one side to channel any stray water back into the main sewer; this area was clearly meant for human passage.

 _And the access ladder goes into the main sewer and not here? That does it, this entire city was designed by a madman._

But at least the corridor seemed empty at the moment. Keeping an ear open in case that changed, he cautiously approached the body, keeping his gun trained on it and alert for the slightest hint of movement. He'd already had several seemingly dead bodies stand up and try to eat him, after all.

This one didn't stir, however, even when he reached out with a foot to prod experimentally at what he thought was a shoulder. After another glance at that bloody smear on the wall, Leon crouched down for a closer look.

The man was dressed in a mix of greys and dark browns, colors meant to blend into the shadows and break up the silhouette of a human outline. He'd been wearing body armor as well – including a gas mask, the heavy-duty kind meant for walking around on planets with poisonous or even corrosive atmospheres.

 _Or walking into ground zero of one of the Confederacy's nastier bioweapons. What was he_ doing _down here?_

Whatever it was, he'd come armed like he was ready for trouble – or looking to cause it. A combat knife was sheathed to his harness – the hardened ceramic type, that wouldn't set off metal detectors and had a dull black finish that wouldn't reflect light. A handgun had been tucked into the small of his back, with extra ammunition in pouches on his harness. Along with a few other things that would have been grounds for arrest if the man had been caught wearing them in the street.

Although, going by the assault rifle lying on the ground a short distance away, arrest had probably been the least of the man's worries.

 _And none of it did him any good_.

A closer look at the far wall told… part of the story, anyway. The man had been making his way down the corridor when he'd been attacked from behind. He'd started to fire while he was still turning – Leon could make out the places where the bullets had hit the wall. And then…

Well. Ultimately, Leon needn't have really worried. Even if the man had become a zombie, he wouldn't have been a threat. Not when his bones had been crushed to powder. Human limbs didn't normally _bend_ like that. Spines, even less so.

 _No wonder he went splat when he hit the wall_.

Which was about the point where Leon had to take a mental step back, put his head down, and focus on just _breathing_ for a moment. After fighting his way through a building of zombies – zombies who would have been his coworkers – he'd thought he'd more or less gone numb to the carnage.

 _Really should've known better._

Then he squared his shoulders and leaned in again, quickly searching the body for anything usable. The combat knife was out, worse luck – the blade had cracked. Likewise the handgun; the barrel was dented in a way that Leon wouldn't trust to fire properly. But the ammunition, at least, was still good. He'd have liked to take the harness as well, but untangling it from the corpse… well, apparently there were limits to how far he could push himself.

Leon's hands suddenly stopped, as he suddenly noticed what _wasn't_ there.

 _No insignia_.

And it should have been there. Even if this had been some kind of top-secret military operation, armed forces operating in a civilian area _had_ to carry insignia, to show that they were legitimate.

 _Which kind of suggests this guy_ wasn't _, doesn't it?_

And that, in turn, raised another, uglier question.

 _S.T.A.R.S. gone missing. No response from emergency services outside the city. Umbrella Corp. Irons. And now untraceable commandos armed for heavy combat. Just how big_ is _this mess…?_

Leon shook his head forcefully, standing up. Now was not the time to worry about the big picture. At the moment, he was more concerned with what this would mean in the more immediate sense.

 _He's been dead a while; that blood's old. A couple days, maybe._

Which meant… several things. Whatever had happened down here… he wasn't exactly clear on timeline, but based on his best guess, that meant that whatever had happened down here, had happened _before_ the city was overrun with zombies. Any buddies this guy had with him – and Leon knew strike team gear when he saw it, no way had this guy been on his own – would be long gone.

More importantly, it hopefully meant that whatever had done this in the first place was _also_ long gone. Although Leon wasn't about to make the mistake of assuming that it wouldn't come back…

The sharp _snap-pang!_ of gunfire echoing through the sewers abruptly rendered the line of thought pointless.

Leon stiffened, swearing mentally as he hesitated for just a moment as he tried to get his bearings, and then took off down the corridor, praying he'd judged correctly and that the sounds really were coming from that direction.

 _Handgun_ , he guessed after a moment, thoughts racing even as he forced his legs to go no faster than a steady jog. With the sharp retorts of gunfire bouncing back and forth between the walls, he didn't have any chance of hearing any trouble that might be nearer at hand, which meant he couldn't afford to go barreling ahead and potentially straight into the middle of something he couldn't get himself out of. _No… two guns._

A turn in the corridor, and the sound became a little easier to make out from the echoes – an odd staccato pattern of a few shots, a pause, a few shots, another pause…

 _Trading fire._ Lips thinning, Leon let himself pick up the pace slightly. _Or trying to tag-team something nasty… dammit, I should have grabbed the rifle!_ Not that it had done the crushed commando much good, but at least it would have been an effective way of distracting an enemy…

Rounding another corner, Leon slowed abruptly.

Ahead, the corridor ended in a T-intersection. Across the intersection, Ada had wedged herself into a shallow alcove, slamming a fresh clip into her small handgun even as she tried to crane her neck just a bit to peek out from her shelter – and then flinching back as another shot _whirr_ ed through the air and struck the edge of the alcove, actually knocking a chip out of the stone as it ricocheted off.

"Thief!" someone shouted – a woman's voice, high and strained and cracking in a way that immediately raised red flags in Leon's mind and set him hugging the wall even as he picked up his pace again. That tone had all the hallmarks of someone stressed past the point of rationality – which meant that whoever was up there was _very dangerous_. And had a gun. "You can't have it! I won't let you take it!"

 _It?_

As Leon eased himself up to the edge of the corner, Ada glanced over, expression fiercely determined despite the chalky-pale pallor of her face. Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw him, and Leon quickly pressed a finger to his lips; he didn't want whoever was shooting to know that someone else was present, not until he had a better feel for the situation. Somehow, he wasn't surprised when Ada simply nodded briskly to show her understanding, and then pointedly flicked her eyes down to the open corridor between them.

Not so open. Bodies were lying sprawled and scattered on the flagstones, all of them dressed in the same dark clothing, body armor, and weaponry he'd seen on the first body he'd left back at the entrance of the corridor. From the look of things, there'd been some kind of fight – the walls were pocked with the scars of gunfire, and he could make out the brassy glint of bullets scattered everywhere.

 _Hell. That wasn't a fight. That was a massacre._

Two of the bodies had been crushed in a way that reminded Leon of that first unfortunate guy he'd found. Another hadn't been so much crushed as torn limb from limb, in a way that was all too reminiscent of what had happened to the reporter back in the cell. A fourth had been run through with a pipe – shit, Leon could actually see where the thing had been broken off from the wall – and left pinned to the floor. From the look of things, that had _not_ been the fast death of the others, and Leon had to take a deep breath, even with the distance of crime scene training and an evening of seeing way too much horror already.

A small case was lying not far from the body, as though it had been dropped there, or maybe kicked during the dying man's death throes. It had fallen open, and Leon could see the gleam of a series of stoppered test tubes in the cushioned and likely insulated interior. The gleam of glass showed where other vials had been knocked loose, several of them cracked or even smashed as though they'd been stepped on.

 _I'll bet that's the_ it _she's yelling about._

But from here, he couldn't see the shooter, although from the angle of that first shot, the woman was apparently on some kind of high ground…

Leon pulled out his combat knife, glad he'd taken the time to clean and oil it before driving into town. At the time, he'd just been anxious about arriving with all his personal gear in top condition. Now… it wasn't much of a mirror, but by holding it out at just the slightest angle, he could get a look at what they were dealing with.

Two more bodies. Beyond them, a metal grate blocking the corridor, the bars warped slightly from some kind of impact. Above it…

 _Bingo_.

A walkway crossing the hallway about a story up, along the wall above that grate. And on it, a pale figure – blonde, dressed in a long, open-fronted white coat, sighting down a pistol.

 _Okay. That's the situation. Now – what do I do about it?_

He wasn't exactly inclined to step out of cover. Someone screaming like that wasn't inclined to be rational, and he didn't think a police officer's uniform would make a difference at this point. It might come to that anyway – if she re-sighted on him, it would give Ada a chance to dart across the hallway. But that was a risky proposition.

Ada glanced at him – she'd finished reloading her gun. Holding it up, she raised an eyebrow, jerking it in the direction of the woman on the walkway, and then looked significantly at Leon's gun, still held in his other hand.

Covering fire? Possible. But he wasn't sure he trusted the woman to duck, and… dammit, Leon really didn't want to shoot at another living human being. Not tonight. He would if he had to, but…

 _Wait. They were shooting at each other earlier. Assuming the lady has a standard model…_

Leon held up a finger – _wait, but be ready_ – and then, without moving out of cover, sighted along his gun and fired.

The bullet _spang_ ed off the broken-off pipe, loud and distracting even if it was harmless. More importantly, the impact made the whole pole vibrate – and for just a moment, the corpse attached to it looked as though it was twitching.

Three quick shots answered, one of them sending a shard of glass skittering across the floor as it struck the nearby stone, two others plugging into the corpse.

Then, the sound Leon had hoped for – the distinctive _click_ of an empty clip, and a muttered curse-

Leon gestured sharply. _Move, move,_ move _!_

Ada didn't hesitate, which had to be one of the bravest things Leon had ever seen. She threw herself out into the corridor at a dead run, dashing across from her hiding place in the alcove to the far side and safety-

And then veered off halfway, making instead for the fallen case.

 _You idiot, what do you think you're doing?!_

Never mind that they didn't know what the hell was in that thing. Never mind that the woman on the upper walkway was clearly willing to kill to keep people away from it. To get there, Ada had to veer around the pinned corpse, duck down, slam the case closed, and pick it up, and he'd just heard a triumphant cry from above, Ada was _out of time_ -

If he'd thought, he wouldn't have moved in time. So Leon just _acted_ , lunging out of the cover of the corridor to grab Ada by the wrist and physically _wrench_ her into cover, twisting around as he did so to put himself between her and the gunwoman, because his uniform included light body armor, so if one of them was going to get shot…

 _Oh hell. This is going to hurt._

Then pain exploded across his shoulder, and the world went completely white.

~RESIDENT PROJECT~

Claire's knee hit the metal grating of the catwalk, gun up and sighting on the top of the stairs before her conscious mind even really registered what had happened.

The walkway rattled around her – someone was running up the stairs connecting the catwalk to the shuttle, with no thought for stealth or caution. She could hear them panting, a high-pitched, " _Hi-eee… hi-eee_ ," as though another scream had gotten stuck halfway through their throat and they were desperately trying to breathe around it. A moment later, a heavyset man appeared at the head of the stairs – and staggered as he apparently missed a step, falling forward onto his hands hard enough to shake the entire walkway.

 _Is that Irons?_

Claire wasn't sure who else it could be, although the man wasn't wearing any uniform, just a white button-up shirt spattered with blood over dark trousers. His salt-and-pepper hair was sticking out in odd directions, as though he'd had it slicked back at one point but had been running his hands through it, and one corner of his heavy, old-fashioned mustache was skewed out of place.

Wide, wild eyes skipped right over her without even seeming to see her, sweat visible on the man's face even in the darkness, and then Irons rolled over, eyes locking on something on the stairs below even as he scrabbled at the grating, trying to scuttle backwards like a crab up those last few steps.

"W-William. You're William, yes? Th-there's no need for this. We're partners, aren't we? I've helped you all this time, after all…"

 _Clong. Clong. Clong._ Something was coming up the steps, slowly, heavily – and Claire swallowed, trying to wet a suddenly dry throat.

 _But… zombies can't climb stairs…_

The wheedling, pleading tone in Irons's voice suddenly turned into rage, like a switch had been flipped. "Oh, I see. I see! Umbrella is trying to cover its tracks, isn't it!" He scrabbled at his belt. "Well, I won't go so easily!"

" _Graaaaaauuuuuuuuugh!_ "

The roar sent ice pouring down Claire's spine, a raw animal instinct freezing her in place in the futile hope that the predator wouldn't see her. That was unmistakably the same sound she and Sherry had heard, back in the S.T.A.R.S. office…

And more horrifyingly… this close, there was no mistaking the timbre of it. There was something _human_ in that sound.

"S-Stay away!" Irons shrieked, pulling out a gun and pointing it at whatever was below him, firing as fast as he could pull the trigger. " _Stay away-!_ "

Something abruptly yanked the man down onto the stairs, out of Claire's line of the sight. The man _screamed_ … a scream that cut off suddenly and completely with a sickening wet _sklurch_ sound.

Several sounds, that went on for far too many heartbeats, before she heard the dull _clunk_ of something being dropped onto the stairs. Something… significantly smaller than a grown man.

Claire stayed where she was, frozen with dread, not even daring to breathe.

 _I can't move. If I move, it_ will _hear me. Irons fired almost an entire clip and it didn't stop. I can't fight this thing._

 _Maybe it'll turn around. Maybe it was only interested in chasing Irons. Oh,_ please _…_

For several heartbeats that lasted an eternity, there was only silence. Then-

 _Clong. Clong. Clong._

It was coming up the stairs.

Swallowing hard, Claire gritted her teeth and forced legs that wanted to shake like jelly to straighten, rising back onto her feet again. If she couldn't fight this thing directly… then she'd better be prepared to dodge.

At the end of the walkway, a figure lurched into view.

Claire found herself taking a step back without making any sort of conscious decision to do so. She'd almost gotten used to seeing the warped flesh and dead eyes on what had been fellow human beings – or at least, she'd forced herself to stop noticing it, to stop thinking of the zombies as former people, because if she did that she'd hesitate when she couldn't afford it.

This man looked… almost normal. With the zombies… every one she'd seen had been decaying, the flesh loose on their bones, and she had no idea what that meant, when it couldn't possibly have been long enough for natural decay to set in. But the man in front of seemed almost healthy… if she ignored the shattered mess of the right half of his face, like someone had shot him in the eye. It wasn't just his face, either. There was something _wrong_ with his arm, as well – it was too long, too thick around, and… she wasn't even sure if that thing at the end had _fingers_ , let alone a hand.

The… man… was wearing simple jeans, and had the remnants of a white lab coat over a chest that was… _wrong_. Like the arm, it was too broad, too muscled – but there was something off about the muscles, like they'd simply grown willy-nilly under his skin, none of the symmetry that bespoke a healthy body. And she could see the shreds of a shirt stretched here and there across them, as though the muscles had simply grown and grown until the whole thing tore.

 _Like those silly cartoons Chris liked as a kid…_ she thought, and had to bite down a hysterical giggle.

There was even a name tag still dangling on the front of the lab coat.

She backed away step for step as the man staggered up the last of the steps and began advancing slowly along the catwalk. But… he didn't react to her presence at all, didn't even seem to notice that she was there. He staggered a few steps forward, shoulders slumped and legs buckling as he walked, as though they didn't remember how to carry his weight – and then stumbled, that misshapen hand grabbing at the railing of the catwalk to steady him.

Then, with that horribly human roar and the high-pitched _snap_ of overstressed metal, the pole broke off in his hand as he straightened. He swung it once, then twice, the air humming with the force of each swing-

-and looked straight at Claire.

Reflexively, she backed up another step, and then forced herself to stop, thinking madly. If she kept going this way, she'd be cornered when she reached the ladder. Even if she made it up the ladder, she'd be leading the man straight to Sherry…

Sudden motion caught her eye as the man abruptly hunched over, twitching and shaking as his still-human arm clutched at his chest. Then suddenly he spasmed, spine arcing backwards as a long, drawn-out roar echoed through the darkness again – along with a horrible, squelching, _tearing_ sound.

A rift opened along the right side of his chest as it bulged – oh God, she could actually see the bottom of his ribcage, as the skin tried and failed to stretch enough to accommodate the sudden growth in size and mass, as new muscle visibly rushed in to fill up the extra space, the sleeve of the white coat tearing until only a scrap around the join of the shoulder was holding that half of it in place… and one of those strange bulges right in the bicep of his arm _opened_ , revealing a massive red eye bigger than his head that immediately darted back and forth, searching the darkness, before fixing right on her.

With another one of those wordless, animalistic, _too human_ roars, the _thing_ charged at her, metal bar raised high and legs no longer shaking in the slightest.

Claire didn't think. She didn't have _time_ to think. Instead, she waited until the monster was almost on her, then darted forward, ducking under the _whoosh_ of the swinging bar and squeezing by until she came out behind the creature, and got clear of him, running farther down the catwalk…

And then swore, suddenly realizing her mistake. Chris had always emphasized that she plain wasn't _big_ enough to grapple with a full-grown man, let along this thing, and so she'd aimed to get out of grabbing range – but she should have stayed close, kept tight to the monster's back where he couldn't reach her. Now she was caught with the stairs behind her – they were too steep to run down, she'd break an ankle if not her neck – and the monster was turning to lumber back towards her. Gritting her teeth, Claire dropped down into a low crouch, bracing to try and dodge again-

" _Claire!_ "

 _Oh no._ "Sherry, stay up there! Get away from the hatch!" she yelled – but it was too late, the monster was already turning.

Snarling, Claire brought her gun up and fired.

To her surprise, the bullets _did_ seem to have an effect, however slight. At the very least, she'd distracted him; the monster turned slightly, massive arm waving as if trying to shoo away an annoying insect-

Then, by luck as much as design, one of Claire's bullets struck squarely in the center of that glaring red eye.

The monster recoiled with a roar that was as much rage as pain, a sound that felt like it bypassed Claire's ears entirely and went straight to her bones as the monster turned about, clearly determined to crush her into paste. Gulping, Claire threw herself forward again, barely managing to evade a stomping foot, and thank goodness the monster was top-heavy because otherwise she'd be dead before she got back to her feet…

 _That's it!_

Kicking her feet out, Claire used the momentum of her roll to come up onto her feet – but rather than straightening, she used the footing to launch herself forward again. This time, however, she didn't try to _avoid_ the monster's legs.

Claire's shoulder slammed into the backs of the monster's knees with all the force she could muster. The monster grunted, teetering – but as she'd seen just a minute earlier, those still-human legs weren't really strong enough to handle the mass of that twisted, warped upper body. With a sharp moan, he toppled down the stairs.

A desperate grab at the railing kept Claire from tumbling after him. She was panting, barely able to force her body to keep a breath in her aching lungs long enough to get any oxygen out of it, shaking with adrenaline. But if that thing had brushed off bullets as a nuisance, she doubted falling down the stairs would do more than slow it down.

Meaning she had to get out of here _now_.

Gritting her teeth, Claire hauled herself back onto her feet. Her left leg buckled a bit when she put weight on it – she must have banged it against something and not even noticed. But it didn't hurt, and imminent death was a very good incentive to force it to steady as she ran for the end of the catwalk and the ladder.

Sherry, the brave little _idiot_ , was still standing over the hatch, eyes huge and face pale as she peered down. "Claire!" she cried, relief shifting to anxiety in mid-syllable as she took in the look on Claire's face.

"Get up to Irons's office!" Claire gasped, grabbing at the rungs of the ladders and trying to ignore the way her hands were shaking. She could hear the _clang, clang, clang_ of the monster coming up the stairs again, much faster this time, and she wasn't sure she'd make it up the ladder in time-

Small hands latched onto her wrist as she grabbed the top rung, pulling fiercely. Startled, she looked up to see that Sherry had anchored herself in place with her tentacles as she pulled with all the strength in her small body – and then some, the air humming ever so slightly as untrained telekinesis tried to boost her strength as she pulled Claire up. Gritting her teeth, Claire grabbed the edge of the hatch with her free hand and jumped, throwing even the little scrap of her own telekinetic talent into it as her feet pushed off from the rung, just as a roar from below told her that the monster had cleared the steps and seen her disappearing through the hatch.

Both of them crashed onto the floor of Irons's lab, gasping for breath. Heart hammering, Claire pushed herself up onto her feet, barely noticing the odds and ends spilling onto the floor from her satchel, and grabbed Sherry, pulling the kid up as well. "We need to get out of here!" she said breathlessly, her ears full of the _clang-clang-clang_ of the monster running across the catwalk.

Something small and round bounced on the floor, and then rolled across it to fetch up against Claire's boot.

For just a second, Claire stared at it. Then-

 _Please let this work!_

Reaching down, she snatched up the grenade she'd taken from the S.T.A.R.S. office. Hooking her finger through the ring at the end, she yanked the pin out, turned, and dropped it down the open hatch onto the catwalk below. Then she grabbed Sherry's shoulder, ignoring the stinging in her finger – ow, no _wonder_ Chris always snarked about good dentists when the heroes in movies pulled the pin out with their teeth…

"Get behind the door!" she said, only letting go of Sherry's shoulder when it became obvious the girl would be faster running on her own. Regular furniture and even walls wouldn't be enough to stop the shrapnel from a grenade, but that was a heavy security door, it should be enough…

 _How long do we have? It's supposed to be three seconds, right? Isn't that the joke? Not two, not four, five is Right Out…_

She was vaguely aware that her mind was babbling, as she and Sherry threw themselves down on the other side of the heavy door, huddling close. Had it been a count of three yet? She didn't know, she'd lost track, it felt like it had been minutes…

Muffled by the door, she heard a vaguely confused, " _Guuuaaah?_ " And maybe, maybe, the faintest _click_ , like something being picked up.

The explosion deafened Claire. Next to her, Sherry yelped, reflexively curling into a ball with her arms wrapped around her head, either in reaction to the noise or an attempt to shielding herself from the _ping-ping-ping_ of shrapnel striking stone and metal and – by the shattering sound – a poorly placed glass jar.

Or trying to block out the heart-jolting roar that shuddered up from the floor below, a roar that peaked, seemed to wobble for a moment, and then… faded, diminishing without stopping, as though falling away.

Silence, unbroken save for the slow _plip… plip… plip…_ of liquid dripping.

After several long moments, the hammering of Claire's heart in her throat eased a bit. It took her a full minute, though, before she could convince her limbs to unlock enough to wobble back onto her feet and step out of the shelter of the door to see what had happened.

After everything, it was almost offensive that the lab seemed utterly unchanged. Only a closer look showed water dripping off one of the shelves over the hatch from a shattered jar, or the scars on the walls where shrapnel had ricocheted off. Swallowing hard, Claire stepped closer to the hatch and tentatively glanced down.

She sucked in a sharp breath. The ladder was hanging crooked – she wasn't sure she'd trust it with her weight again. The catwalk had fared better, or at least it still seemed solid – oh God, she hadn't even _thought_ about the fact that a grenade going off on it might damage it! But the railing next to the ladder was bowed and dented, as though something massive had crashed into it… and then gone over it.

Finally, Claire let herself exhale, even if it was shakier than she would have liked. Then she started, as a small warm weight pressed close against her side.

"What… _was_ that?" Sherry asked in a small voice, her eyes still huge.

"I don't know, honey." Although Claire had a nasty guess that she desperately hoped was wrong. Irons had known the man – had said he'd been _helping_ him. And he'd been wearing a lab coat, even if she hadn't exactly gotten a chance to look at the name tag.

Shaking her head, Claire reached down and began collecting the supplies that had fallen out of the satchel during the mad rush. "Come on, let's get this together. And then… I think we need to go up to the office and try to get in touch with Leon. I don't want to stay here and find out what _else_ is hanging around." She glanced at the hatch. "And… I may have found us a way out."

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

"Damn it, damn it, _damn it_ …!"

Gritting her teeth, Ada dragged Leon the rest of the way into the shelter of the corridor, ignoring the ache in her side from hitting the floor too hard. It was better than having a bullet hole in her, and she was _not thinking_ about that just yet. Instead, the moment they were clear, Ada turned Leon over, checking for breathing, _some_ sign of life…

She wasn't panicking. She _wasn't_. But she also wasn't going to deny that seeing his eyes flicker open was anything other than pure relief.

But alive now didn't mean he'd stay that way. Lips pressed together in a thin line, Ada began unclipping his harness.

Leon blinked, obviously still dazed. "Wha…"

"You were _shot_." That came out… a little flatter than Ada had intended, as she pulled open his uniform jacket. Underneath, she found a vest, surprisingly heavy for its lightweight appearance, and breathed a little easier.

Leon's eyes were quickly clearing, as he began to shake the shock off. "First aid kit," he said. "In the bag." He started to pull it off, only to stop with a flinch when his left shoulder shifted.

Ada's eyes narrowed. "Let me see that," she said briskly, helping the man sit up a little straighter as she moved around and pulled his jacket clear. Something clattered to the ground as she did so; she glanced at the flattened bullet for a moment and then ignored it, more concerned about the damage it had done. Underneath the vest, an ugly bruise was already starting to bloom on Leon's shoulder, and the skin was warm to the touch as his body's defenses roused against the injury.

Ada studied it carefully for a long moment, delicately testing the area and noting the way Leon winced. Then she sighed. "I think you may have a cracked rib under there, but I can't be sure." She'd made a point of learning basic first aid, just in case, but she'd never really expected to need it for more than sprained ankles and the like.

There was an ugly wound along the top of Leon's shoulder, as well, right underneath a tear that had gone clear through both jacket and armored vest. The impact of the gunshot had torn the edges of the wound slightly, fresh blood welling up at the edges.

"Hurts like it, at least. Damn." Leon shook his head slightly, although he winced again when the motion pulled at the injuries. "There should be an analgesic patch in the kit; slap that on over it. I can't afford to have my arm immobilized."

Ada hummed agreement as she sorted through the first aid kit. And she was going to have _words_ with whoever designed the packaging, it took her three tries to get it open…

Oh. Her hands were shaking. That was why.

Ada swallowed hard and forced herself to focus as she placed the patch over the spreading bruise. Spotting an antiseptic spray in the kit as well, she applied that to the other wound, and then closed the kit up.

And then pulled out one of the water bottles tucked away, uncapped it, and promptly downed nearly half of the contents before coming up for air. She _needed_ that.

 _Never,_ ever _taking a bio-intel job. Ever. Again._

Damn it all, she'd gone into corporate espionage because it was challenging, pushed her talents, amused her, paid well, and – not insignificantly – generally did _not_ involve getting shot at.

Or _zombies_. She was going to demand hazard pay.

And… Leon was saying something. Shaking her head, Ada closed the bottle and packed it away again, then reached out to help Leon resettle his vest and jacket. "Sorry. I was thinking. What did you say?"

"What was all that about, anyway? Who was that woman?"

Ada shook her head. "I'm not sure. I think she was wearing some kind of a lab coat, but I didn't get a good look. I didn't realize she was there until she started screaming about _thieves_ and shooting at me."

Clipping his harness back into place, Leon eyed her. "And then you decided to prove her right. And opened yourself up to getting shot in the process. _Why_?"

Ada ruthlessly suppressed the urge to wince. Or perhaps flinch. She'd thought reloading would take longer than that, had thought there was enough time. She hadn't miscalculated that badly in… years. Ever, really.

"Because _something_ must have caused this," she explained. "There's no way this is a natural disease. I don't know what happened down here, but… look." With a sweep of her hand, she indicated broken glass scattered between the bodies, and the grated culvert running along the corridor. "Whatever was in those things, it must have gone straight into the city's water supply."

Not to mention that, if she could get her hands on them, she could then focus on getting out of here, professional pride and reputation safe.

And from the half-breath of a pause where Leon just looked at her, he'd guessed that. Or at least had figured out that she had ulterior motives. Ada was impressed, though. Most people, if they thought they'd caught someone shading the truth, couldn't resist the urge to call them out on it, either in indignation or to show off their own cleverness. Leon just studied her for a long moment, and then seemed to dismiss it as not immediately important.

"Is that why you came running down here?" he asked, tone neutral as he checked his gun for any damage.

Ada hesitated. "In a way," she admitted. "John… my boyfriend once slipped and mentioned something about a secret laboratory under the city. I figured that if there were any answers to this mess, they're probably in there."

And blast it all, she'd worked _hard_ for that contact. She'd even liked the guy himself, at least as a coffee buddy on occasion. She'd taken Ben's invite because it was a potential in, and out of the hopes of getting something out of her commitment in cultivating John after he'd suddenly gone silent, but she had _not_ bargained on a mess like this.

"Secret labs in the sewers. You know, the worst part is that I'm not even all that surprised. Compared to the rest of today that practically makes sense." Leon shook his head in disgust, a little more carefully this time – then then, to Ada's surprise, shifted around to level a sharp scowl at her. "Unlike, say, running off into the sewers _alone_."

The shift in topic was so sudden that it actually took Ada a few seconds to realize what he was talking about. When she did, she stiffened. "I can handle myself," she said, voice sharp and clipped.

"Yeah, I kind of noticed that you're sort of terrifyingly competent," Leon said dryly, to Ada's hidden surprise. "Which is not the point. I don't care _how_ good you are, Ada – you've still got only two hands, and you can only look in one direction at any one time. Running off alone when you have the option of backup is reckless and _stupid_." The tone of his voice made it very clear which one he considered to be the greater crime.

Ada had to fight down a wince. Much as she hated it… he was right. At the time, she'd mostly been thinking it would be easier to get her job done without some cop following her around, but she was painfully aware that she'd gotten very, very lucky.

Leon kept that fierce stare on her for a long moment, before his gaze softened ever so slightly and his lip twitched faintly. "Besides," he added wryly. "Between the police station and these sewers, I think this whole city was designed by the long-lost cousin of Bloody Stupid Johnson or something."

Ada blinked, line of thought abruptly pulled off-track. "You've read Pratchett?" she asked in surprise. And maybe a little glee. _No one_ bothered with the classics anymore – mostly because you had to be fluent in pre-space English to really appreciate the brilliance of the puns.

Leon grinned shamelessly. "I always figured that the City Guard books should be required reading for cops. Who watches the watcher, indeed." The smile faded suddenly as he sighed, slumping back against the wall, eyes suddenly tired and too old for his face. "Ada. I'm _infected_. Let me do what I can while I still _can_."

Ada couldn't hide the flinch this time. Somehow, she'd let herself forget that Leon was living on borrowed time, even when she'd looked straight at the bite…

Wait.

"Leon… how long has it been since you got that bite?" she asked slowly.

Leon blinked. "I'm… not sure, actually," he admitted. "What time is it?"

It said something about the day she'd been having that Ada had to actually check her timepiece to be sure. Normally, her ability to track time passing was almost flawless – a necessary knack, when one was dealing with certain security systems. Which made the answer she found all the more surprising. _Surely_ it was later than that!

"A little after twelve," she answered. Which meant the night wasn't even half over yet, since this planet had an seventy-two minute adjustment period between 12:59 and 1:00, in order to correct for the difference between old Earth's day of twenty-four sixty-minute hours and this planet's rotation.

Ada had always considered that ridiculous – why not just change the hour count, or the length of local hours? But then again, humans had been flailing over how to deal with the idea that time was _not_ actually an absolute ever since they'd first stumbled on the concept of time zones.

"Huh." Leon tilted his head to the side slightly, looking nonplussed. "That's… later than I thought. Over two hours, then."

Ada stared at him.

"…What?"

She drew in a slow breath, picking each word carefully. "Since I arrived in the city this afternoon, I've seen several people bitten. None of them – _none_ of them – made it even as long as an hour." If they died in the initial attack, the change was almost instantaneous, which was downright disturbing in its own right… but even if they survived, the infection spread terrifyingly fast. Most of the ones she'd seen had changed within forty-five minutes. The man who'd driven the transport shuttle here hadn't made it to thirty.

Leon stared blankly back, and then slowly twisted his head to glance at his shoulder. "You mean… I might not be infected."

"It's worth thinking about," Ada pressed, with a force that startled even her. But damn it… almost against her will, she was coming to _like_ Leon.

Not to mention, she owed him a rather significant debt at the moment. He'd just saved her life.

For a moment, Leon did seem to be thinking about it. Then his face darkened. "I'm not willing to risk taking whatever is causing this out of the city just on the strength of _might not_."

Blast… wait. "Then help me find the lab," Ada suggested, pushing herself back up to her feet. One way or another, they couldn't afford to linger here for too long. That woman who'd been shooting at her would eventually make her way around to them. They needed to be gone before that happened. "If this did come from there – they might have something that can detect the presence of an infection."

Leon was quiet for a long moment, clearly thinking that over. Ada let him, biting back the urge to push. Going from _I am going to be a zombie in the next hour_ to considering the possibility that he might actually live… that had to be a shock.

"…What the hell," Leon said at last, gathering his legs under him and carefully climbing back onto his feet as well. "It's not like I have any better leads at the moment. But I need to check back with the others first."

Ah. Yes, he had mentioned that there were other survivors. Part of Ada wanted to huff with impatience, but… well, she was _professional_. Not ice-hearted.

"Besides," Leon added thoughtfully. "Claire may be able to help us find the lab."

Ada raised her eyebrows. "Oh?"

"You said something about Irons being mixed up in this, right? She was going to check out his office. She may have found something." Leon shrugged, only moving his good shoulder. "If nothing else, it's better than wandering around blindly down here and hoping we stumble across something. Especially given… that." He nodded pointedly towards the mess of bodies in the corridor.

"I can't argue with that," Ada admitted wryly. Spotting Leon's gun on the floor – he must have dropped it when he'd gone to pull her out of the line of fire – she picked it up and handed it back to him.

Leon accepted it back, but a frown crossed his face. "That reminds me. How much ammunition do you have left?"

"Not as much as I'd like." She'd come here on the assumption that she was meeting a potential contact, after John had simply dropped off the map. She'd dressed for trouble – the outfit might look classy, the sort of thing a determined young woman looking for a lost boyfriend would wear to meet with a reporter, but the skirt of the minidress was short enough that she could run easily, leggings meant she wouldn't be distracted at a bad moment by modesty and gave her legs a little protection, and the flat pumps she wore were well-suited to running and climbing if she needed it. Unfortunately, it meant she also suffered from a severe lack of storage space. The gun was supposed to be an emergency backup, not a primary weapon. She'd brought extra ammunition, just in case… but not _that_ much.

Leon grimaced. "I was afraid of that. We'll need to be careful, then." He turned to go back the way they had come.

"Wait." When he glanced back at her, Ada gestured to the fallen case in the hallway, still lying where she'd dropped it in the chaos.

He shook his head. "If it fell open like that in the first place, then either the latch or the hinges are probably damaged," he pointed out. "I don't know about you, but I'm not keen on carrying a vial that might be full of _zombie virus_ in anything other than a fully secured and insulated container."

"…Point." Damn.

That lab had better have samples left, then. She had a reputation to maintain, and a hefty bonus she intended to collect.

* * *

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

* * *

AN: Much as I love Superspy Ninja Ada… in the franchise, she suffers from something I personally call the Sephiroth Effect, where a character's cool and competence gets played up so much by the fandom that ultimately the creators themselves buy into the hype (for example, Sephiroth being mentally and emotionally detached from everything, when in the original game he laughs, makes snarky comments, and strikes up a casual conversation with a random trooper). One of the things that I actually liked a bit about the original version of Resident Evil 2 is that Ada _isn't_ insanely skilled. She makes a number of mistakes, she doesn't show any particularly out of the ordinary physical skills – and it's worth pointing out that apparently whatever cover she came up with wasn't enough to hold up to a _standard background check_.

For the purposes of linking to the rest of the Tatterdemalion 'verse, I needed her to be very good at hacking – so that wasn't an issue in this version. But to my mind, up to this point she's mostly done _industrial espionage_. Which is not, normally, the sort of thing that involves Bond-level stunts and toys and lethal martial arts. She knows more than the average citizen, but she's no ninja.

Mind, _after_ this, you can bet that her priorities regarding self-defense training have shifted. Zombie apocalypses tend to do that.


	4. No Turning Back

CHAPTER FOUR

No Turning Back

* * *

Leon had to stop partway up the ladder, trying to keep his labored breathing under control. Panting like a dog would only make him even more light-headed, which was the last thing he wanted.

Climbing a ladder with an injured shoulder was not fun. Imagine that.

Which was why he'd insisted that Ada go first. If he lost his grip, she wouldn't be able to break his fall, and he'd have ended up taking both of them down. Not to mention that if there were any unpleasant surprises waiting for them at the top, he wouldn't be able to use his gun until he'd actually climbed all the way out; he couldn't trust his left hand to hold his full weight long enough for him to shoot something. From the thin-lipped look on her face, she had come to the same conclusions, and she'd headed up the ladder without any hesitation.

At least luck seemed to be temporarily on their side. Ada had reached the top, thrown the hatch open, and climbed out without incident, and she'd been out of sight for only a few seconds before she reappeared, looking down through the opening to give him the _all clear_ signal.

Which meant all _he_ needed to do at the moment was keep climbing. Which would go a lot easier if his shoulder would take a hint and stop _hurting_ quite so much. The bite was bad enough. The added deep ache of a bullet-made bruise lower on his shoulder was trying to make his whole back spasm in reaction. Thank goodness the analgesic had kicked in, or this might actually have been impossible…

"Leon?"

Blinking, he looked up to see Ada peering down at him, the faintest hint of a furrow in her brow betraying more worry than he suspected the woman would be comfortable admitting to.

"Just… catching my breath," he replied, forcing a smile that he _knew_ was a little shaky. At least he'd made better time than it had felt like; only about six feet left. The sight gave a welcome surge of added strength to his arms, as he gritted his teeth and forced himself to ignore the sharp pain in his shoulder long enough to cover that last span of distance.

The ladder led to a small room, lit by one plain, bare bulb in the center. The light concealed nearly as much as it revealed, casting the shelves crowded around the edges of the room into shadow, although in one corner Leon could make out the dim blink of lights on some kind of switchboard. This was probably the utility room for the police department, then.

Ada didn't say anything, simply waited patiently as Leon fought to catch his breath and wait for the pain in his shoulder to subside. "Sorry," he said ruefully.

To his surprise, she chuckled, flashing a quick smile that looked remarkably genuine. "You do have a hole in your shoulder. I think that entitles you to take your time."

Leon shook his head ruefully as he slid the hatch back into place – more out of habit than necessity, although on general principles he'd rather not leave an open trapdoor in the floor if for some reason they had to come back to this room. "I think _hole_ is overstating it," he said, before shaking his head. "But all things considered, I think we need to keep moving. I don't want to know what else this place might throw at us…"

A flashing light caught his eye as he straightened. Startled, he looked down at his belt, and then quickly pulled out the radio and flipped it on.

" _—eon? Leon, where_ are _you?_ "

Dammit. There was an edge of real fear in Claire's voice. Leon quickly brought the radio up. "I'm here, Claire. Sorry – I was down in the sewer, that must have blocked the signal."

" _Oh, thank God, you're all right!_ "

There was no mistaking the sheer _relief_ in her voice, and Leon winced. It wasn't hard to imagine what had been going through Claire's mind when he hadn't responded to her transmission – especially since he hadn't checked in with her since going into the sewers.

"I'm still alive, at least," he said, a little wryly. _All right_ was definitely an overstatement, but he was happy to settle for _still alive_ , considering that the alternative was… worse than it normally would be.

For a moment, he considered telling her about Ada's theory, but… no. The only thing worse than no hope at all was having hope only for it to go wrong. And frankly, he wasn't sure _he_ believed the idea. There could be any number of reasons why the infection hadn't taken hold on him yet.

More importantly, Claire wouldn't have taken the risk of contacting him unless it was important – not when a sound or light at the wrong moment could draw the attention of zombies. "What's happened?"

For half a moment, Claire paused – less hesitation and more forcefully reminding herself to focus, if he were to guess. " _Irons is dead_ ," she said, voice crisp and level. " _But I think we may have found a way out of here. Can you get to Irons's office?_ "

"That depends. Where is it?" As he spoke, Leon glanced at Ada, whose lips pursed in frustration or calculation for a moment, before she huffed softly and rolled her eyes before waving a hand: _fine, whatever_.

" _Second floor, southern wing_ ," Claire replied. " _The hallway with the fancy carpet. If you can make it to the S.T.A.R.S. office, I think we cleared out most of the zombies on our way over._ "

That would be a very good thing. Leon still had plenty of ammunition, but if Ada had a full clip left, he'd be surprised, and he only had the one gun. The less zombies they had to go through, the better.

"All right. I think we're in the basement, so it might take us a while to get there," he warned.

This time, the half-breath of silence before Claire spoke was _definitely_ hesitation. " _Be careful, okay? You were right – there's more out there than just zombies. One of them got Irons. I think I dealt with it, but… keep your eyes open._ "

It said something about the last few hours that the phrase " _just_ zombies" even made sense. But Leon hadn't forgotten the carnage and destruction in the jail cell, or the corpses in the sewers. "Roger." Now it was Leon's turn to hesitate. "How's Sherry?"

" _She's okay. Just a second…_ "

For a moment, he heard the familiar crackle of a radio passing hands, and then Sherry's voice called brightly, " _Leon!_ "

He couldn't help but grin a bit. "Hey, kiddo. You good?"

" _Yeah. We got to blow a monster up!_ "

Leon blinked. O…kay. "Were you behind cover when stuff went boom?"

" _Yeah. It was really scary for a minute, but we were okay, and the monster's gone now._ "

"Then I hope you had fun."

" _Are_ you _okay?_ " Sherry asked, tone a mix of suspicion and anxiety.

"Still in one piece," Leon assured her. It was the safest answer he could give, anyway. "Hand me back to Claire?"

" _'Kay_ …"

Leon waited until the crackle of motion had passed, and then asked grimly, "Monster?"

" _The thing that got Irons. I think we took care of it, but… just, be careful. Bullets barely hurt it at all. I'll explain the rest when we meet up._ "

Fair enough. Maybe it was paranoia talking, or maybe not, but Leon wasn't sure he liked the idea of saying too much over the airwaves. "Got it. We're setting out now – hold down the fort for us."

" _Got it_."

Leon turned off the sound on the radio and hooked it back onto his belt – and then looked up, and nearly burst out laughing at the look on Ada's face.

Eyebrows still nearly at her hairline, she echoed, " _I hope you had fun?_ Really?"

Leon shrugged, careful to keep his wounded shoulder still. The ache had faded a bit as he talked to Claire and Sherry; the last thing he wanted was to set it off again. "The way I see it, a nine-year-old kid who's managed to keep herself together during a zombie apocalypse deserves a bit of explosive stress relief," he admitted.

Ada pressed her lips together, but the sparkle in dark eyes and the way the corners of her mouth kept twitching betrayed her amusement. "I can't argue with that," she demurred, and nodded to the doorway. "Shall we?"

Leon quickly checked his gun – utterly unnecessary, but it was turning into something of a habit, and frankly he'd take anything that could help him stay calm at this point.

Truth be told, he'd wondered about trading their weapons. All things considered, it would be better for Ada to carry the weapon with the most ammunition, just in case they got separated. But neither of them had the time or the ammunition to get used to a new weapon.

A glance at the hinges showed that the door was designed to open inwardly, rather than swinging out into the hallway. On the one hand, good – he could crack the door open to peek outside, rather than being forced to throw it open all at once and take his chances. But an inward-swinging door would also be that much easier to break through from the outside. If there were zombies out there, and they noticed the door moving, they could force their way in before Leon could react…

A whisper of movement drew his attention to Ada, who'd shifted her position to stand in the back of the room, gun raised and leveled at the door. Good. If anything came through, she would have a direct line of fire, and some room to maneuver. Once she was in position, Ada glanced at him and nodded subtly – she was ready.

Leon nodded back, and then took a moment to set his ear against the door to listen.

Nothing, except for the low thrum of the power generators, reverberating through the floors and walls and into the heavy wood.

Reaching down, Leon tested the handle.

 _Huh. Unlocked._ Bracing himself, he turned it until he felt more than heard the latch disengage, and eased it open an inch or two, senses alert for the first hint of a creak.

The caution paid off instantly – because there was a zombie right outside, its back to the door as dead eyes stared blankly at a flight of concrete stairs leading up to an open door above them.

 _Damn… door must only lock from the outside. Poor guy got infected, retreated down the stairs, but couldn't get through. Then his zombie couldn't get_ _back_ up _the stairs._

No way were they going to be able to sneak past this one – and he couldn't see far enough past it to judge just how much trouble he was about to bring down on them.

 _A silencer would be very handy right now._

But he didn't have one, and there wasn't much point in wishing. Bringing the gun up, he carefully aimed through the small opening he'd made. One shot, and the zombie crumpled, part of its skull missing from the force of the close-range headshot.

Instantly, he heard the all-too familiar moaning of roused zombies. Throwing the door open, he moved onto the small landing at the base of the stairs – interesting, apparently the utility room was the _only_ room on this level, at least in this area, thank you would-be Bloody Stupid Johnson architect – and dropped into a crouch, sighting up the stairs with his gun.

Then he waited.

 _Drag-thump. Drag-thump. Drag-thump_.

The stairway suddenly darkened as three zombies appeared, dark shadows against the light coming through from the door behind them. Empty eyes – _literally_ empty, as if they'd been pecked out of the woman's face – staring blankly ahead, the leader shambled forward… and then suddenly pitched forward as the zombie stepped out onto the empty space of the top step. Unable to correct, she – it – tumbled forward, crashing down face-forward onto the stairs and sliding several steps downward on pure momentum alone. Fighting the reflexive urge to wince, Leon aimed and fired before the zombie could get back up. Luck was with him; the shot landed true, and the corpse gave a full-body spasm before going still except for the slight twitching that Leon had almost taught himself to ignore. A moment later, the other two also fell. Two shots took down the one on the right – but the one on the left was dragging itself downward with its hands and his first shot missed.

A different gun cracked out, and that zombie collapsed inert as well.

"Stairs as a tripwire. Good thinking," Ada commented, her head tilted to the side and eyes narrowed slightly in concentration. After a moment of waiting to let the echoes of gunfire fade from their ears, she added, "I don't hear any more. You?"

"Nothing. I think we're clear for the moment." Leon straightened, lowering his gun to point at the floor while keeping his grip combat-ready, and began to make his way up the stairs, carefully skirting around the still-shuddering limbs of the fallen zombies. The hardest part was the steps right below the top of the stairs, where he had to actually reach out and drag one of the zombies farther down the steps to clear a path.

He took the time to make doubly sure of that one before doing so, however. One bite from an enemy he'd thought was down was more than enough.

Ada ghosted up the steps behind him, her footfalls light and almost silent on the stairs. Like Leon, her gun was readied, but Leon noted that her attention was on watching the zombies as they passed them, leaving the vanguard to him. Apparently, she'd decided to save her remaining bullets to defend against any surprise attacks. Good thinking.

The door at the top of the stairs was broken; from the look of things, someone – likely the unfortunate fellow who'd been caught at the bottom of the stairs – had simply smashed through the lock rather than opening it normally. Which seemed odd, given that only three zombies had come through the door, but…

 _The station can't have fallen all at once. Maybe someone dealt with the ones that were chasing him?_

That… or maybe he _hadn't_ been trapped by accident. It was possible that, when he'd realized what was happening, he'd gone down the stairs deliberately, in order to ensure that his zombie wouldn't be able to get out and hurt anyone.

Leon shook his head slightly, shoving the thought away. Thinking about it wasn't going to help. He'd decided what he'd do the minute the infection started to take hold. And if he couldn't… well. He suspected Ada was more than level-headed enough to handle it for him. Which should have been terrifying, but at the moment it was more a comfort than anything else.

 _Although if it turns out she really is here_ just _for a boyfriend, it will be a moot point because I will die of shock._

For the time being, however… he'd waited long enough for his eyes to adjust to the light after so long in the dimly lit sewers. Bracing himself, he stepped through the door, scanning his surroundings as he moved to the side to clear the path for Ada.

"Since when does a police station have a _library_?" he murmured in surprise, blinking.

"I think the operant thinking here was more along the lines of, _why not_ ," Ada replied quietly, looking over the rows of shelves with obvious interest. "I suppose it makes sense to keep hard copies of certain files."

True, but those hard copies were usually in a more secure location. Then again… this had been a museum. It was possible that the space had already been there, and they'd simply decided to make use of it.

Shaking his head, Leon started forward, keeping a close eye on the dark spaces between the shelves, as well as the walls set up around desks for privacy and isolation. Someone had carpeted the floor, probably in an attempt to muffle footfalls. Which was a good thing, if one was thinking about not disturbing a researcher's concentration. Less so when you were trying to listen for zombies.

Nothing stirred, although Leon did note several dark stains on the carpet near the door, and one of the desks had been overturned. The double doors themselves, he noted, had been not only closed, but also barricaded, with a long, heavy table pushed up against them. Probably it had once stood in the open area near the entrance, as a place where files or maps could be spread out and studied as a whole, or possibly used for meetings.

Ada studied it thoughtfully for a minute, and then looked up. "Should we take the upper level?"

Following her gaze, Leon saw a mezzanine level running along the inner wall of the room, towards a door that had to open onto the second floor. "Probably a good idea… shit. Won't work." In response to Ada's raised eyebrow, he nodded pointedly at an area right before the open door, where several rails were missing. "See how those are leaning inward? I'm guessing the floor gave out up there for some reason. It's not stable."

For a moment, Ada's lips pursed in a small moue of frustration, before she sighed. "I suppose you're right," she admitted. "Avoiding the ground floor isn't worth the risk of a broken leg." Turning away, she studied the table for a moment. "Well. Think we can manage it?"

Leon studied the table for a moment, glancing at the doors as he did so. Like the door of the utility room, they opened inward. Good for reconnaissance, bad for getting out, since they would have to move the table far enough to let them squeeze through. Still… "I think so. But let's try to be quiet. I'd rather not discover we attracted a swarm thumping around in here."

"Let's worry about _moving_ it, first," Ada quipped, but she obligingly moved to one end of the table, setting her gun on top of it to free up her hands while still having the weapon in easy grabbing range in case something went wrong.

Slipping his own gun into its holster, Leon moved to the other end, reaching down and carefully setting his grip on the old, worn wood that must have been someone's family heirloom at one point or another.

Ironically, in the end staying quiet was the easy part. With the carpet on the floor, there was no way they could simply drag the table, not with just the two of them… but they couldn't _lift_ it more than a millimeter or two, just enough for the two of them to stagger a few steps sideways. When they let go, the table didn't _drop_ so much as simply resettle itself.

 _Small favor or not, I'll take it_ , Leon thought, flexing his hands in an attempt to shake feeling back into his fingers.

Stretching out her own arms, Ada moved around the desk to get a closer look at the door, and then pressed her ear against it with a frown. After a moment, she straightened and turned to look at him.

"It's locked, but from this side," she said. "Opening it won't be a problem. But… it sounds like there _is_ something out there. I don't think they heard us, but we'll have to get past them. What are our options, once we go through?"

"Not a clue," Leon admitted. "Going through the sewers got me completely turned around. I didn't even know there _was_ a library in this place."

Ada's lips twitched, just a bit. "So you weren't joking about it being your first day."

"I wish." Leon couldn't help the bit of rueful amusement that bubbled up. "I know it's something of a tradition to have the first day be terrible, but I really think this might be over the top."

"Put it like that, and the universe will find some way to top even this, just to prove it can," Ada said wryly. Lifting her gun, she took a step back to allow Leon to join her. They hadn't been able to move the table enough to actually open the door all the way, which meant that they needed to both be on the same side or the swinging door would block them off.

In fact… "Stand on the table?" Leon suggested.

Ada tilted her head slightly, then nodded. "Good thought," she said, lightly vaulting up onto the polished surface without any hesitation. Once up, she took a step or two – testing the stability and the traction of her flats, Leon guessed – and then dropped down to a kneeling stance, angled so that she would be looking over Leon's shoulder once the door opened.

Good. If they ran into trouble, Leon could retreat without crashing into her, and Ada would have the protection of high ground. Bracing himself, Leon unlocked the door slowly, so that there would be no betraying _clunk_ as the deadbolt disengaged, and then eased it open.

 _Wait. This hallway…_

"It's all right," he said, feeling some of the tension easing from his shoulders as he pulled the door open the rest of the way. Although the hallway did look a bit different, there was no mistaking the railed staircase paralleling it, or the barricaded window at the far end. "I know where we are now. This isn't far from the S.T.A.R.S. office."

He thought he heard a soft sigh of relief before the soft _thmp_ as Ada hopped off the table again and followed him through the door. "You've been through here before?"

"Twice." After he'd left Sherry with Claire in the S.T.A.R.S. office, he'd backtracked the way he had come, planning to double-check the ground floor areas he'd skipped because there were too many zombies in the area or they were out of the way earlier. Now that he'd been reminded, he recalled briefly checking on the double-doors under the stairs, only to ignore them because they'd been locked; he hadn't had time to go hunting for a key. Which meant the rest of their path should be clear…

"What's wrong?" Ada asked sharply as Leon abruptly hesitated for a moment. Her eyes flicked back and forth from his face to the boarded-up window at the end of the hallway, clearly on edge from the groaning of the horde outside, and the erratic shuddering of the barricade.

"There _were_ a few zombies in here; I cleared them out earlier." He hadn't had much choice, with the way they'd bunched up at the foot of the stairs. Luckily, he'd had plenty of time to pick them off from above, although one had actually managed to progress part of the way up the stairs by shambling over the fallen body of another.

A body that wasn't there anymore. The area around the base of the stairs was empty, save for blood soaking into wood… and a long smear that ran up the stairs.

Ada eyed the track of blood uneasily. "…Perhaps even headshots don't put them down permanently?" she suggested, her tone that of someone raising a possibility more for the sake of form than out of actual hope that she was right.

"Zombies don't climb stairs," Leon said reluctantly. And didn't it say something about the whole situation that he was wishing she was _right_ about the zombies getting back up. At this point, he could handle needing to kill them again. Better that than wondering what new horror was about to be thrown at them-

 _CRASH!_

Wood splintered under the weight of who knew how many bodies, the broken boards of the breached barricade clattering to the ground – along with the first of the zombies, pitching head-first through the now-open window. It didn't even get a chance to get back to its feet before it was followed by another, and two more, the smell of blood and worse things filling the air as the zombies dragged themselves right over the shards of glass still embedded in the window frame without a moment's pause.

"Up the stairs!" Leon yelled – unnecessarily, as he and Ada were both bolting for the staircase even as the words left his mouth.

Needing to re-kill a few zombies, they could handle. There was _no way_ they could manage an endless horde of them.

 _For once, better the devil we_ don't _know, than the one that we_ know _will kill us!_

At the top of the stairs, Leon quickly glanced around. The blood trail led to the window where Sherry had thought she'd seen something, earlier. At some point between when he'd gone downstairs and now, something had smashed its way through the glass – and then, by the look of things, gone out the same way, carrying the bodies of the zombies, and he really didn't want to think about that.

Not with the hallway below them quickly filling up with groaning zombies. Unlike most of the ones he'd seen in the station, these were all types, dressed in all styles of clothes – old, men and women, and Leon made himself look away before he noted more than that a few of the zombies weren't _tall_ enough to be adults.

No point even trying to thin that crowd, not with more coming through the window every second. And with that many numbers…

"Keep moving," he said grimly, starting down the hallway. Eventually, pure crowd pressure would be enough for some of the zombies to make it up to the top of the stairs.

 _Hope Claire was right about the emergency exit._

Gritting his teeth, Leon set off down the hallway. Despite the crawling on the back of his neck and the adrenaline spiking his heart rate with the urge to run, run, _run_ , he forced himself to go no faster than a brisk walk. They couldn't afford to exhaust themselves, and they should still have _some_ time before the zombies were able to follow them up.

 _Assuming that's the only barricade that failed._

It should have been. There was no _reason_ for the other barricades to have failed all at the same time. This wasn't like a video game where the difficulty level went up if you stayed into a certain area for too long, or triggered an event.

He picked up his pace a little more, regardless. Ada's footsteps sped up as well, as if they'd both been thinking the same thing.

No time to stop by the S.T.A.R.S. office again the way he'd hoped, either. Whatever information Claire had gotten out of it would have to be enough.

Several zombie corpses were lying on the carpet at the end of the hallway. Picking his way past them, Leon grabbed the door handle and pulled it open.

 _Boom_.

" _Raaaaaaaauuuuuuugh_ …"

The sound was muffled, and far too close for comfort. And also hair-raisingly familiar. For a moment, Leon and Ada both looked at each other, eyes wide.

"I have a feeling that was Ben's… friend," Ada said, her attempt at dry humor betrayed by the way her face had paled, and the white-knuckled grip of her hands on her small gun.

"I guess he didn't have very good taste in company," Leon managed, and flat and morbid as the joke was, it at least accomplished what he'd needed, shaking them both out of that animal urge to cower and hide, and they set off around the mezzanine, both of them walking as fast as they could without actually breaking into a run.

 _Two doors_ , Leon noted, as they rounded the back of the atrium and came around to the far side. _Which one leads to Irons's office…?_

 _BOOM!_

The door they'd come through just a minute earlier didn't so much open as it _exploded_ , shattered wood flying out to clatter down on the floor below amidst a hail of broken plaster and bricks.

The thing that emerged from the remnants of the doorway was… almost human. Or at least the left side and the legs were human; the left arm still wore what looked like the tattered remains of a white lab coat.

The right arm…

A mass of red and pink muscle, bulging in all the wrong places, so long that the tentacle-like tip dragged slightly on the floor, in spite of the fact that the human half of the body was bent over almost sideways in an attempt to compensate for the sheer mass of it. The arm had practically absorbed the upper half of the man's torso to anchor its mass… including the right side of the head, which seemed welded onto the side of the thing.

Worse… the man's eyes were awake, and aware.

And immediately fixed on the two of them – as did the massive, staring red eye, easily a foot across, set in the approximate area of that warped arm's bicep.

" _Raaaauuuugh!_ "

The force of that roar – still vaguely recognizable as _human_ , which was a nightmare all of its own – forced the creature to lean back, unable to move its head independently of that massive arm. But it was going to recover soon. Which meant…

"Run?" Leon breathed.

"Run," Ada managed.

They both hit the nearest door at a dead run, all thoughts of pacing thrown aside, and nearly fell down onto the carpeted floor as it gave way. The moment he'd mostly regained his balance, Leon whirled and slammed the door shut behind them. He didn't bother looking for a lock; based on what they'd just seen, it wouldn't be enough to stop the thing, just slow it for a moment. Then they were running again, and vaguely in the back of his mind Leon threw out a desperate thanks – carpeted floor meant VIP area, meaning the Chief's office was likely to be nearby…

When they rounded the next corner, Claire was standing in an open doorway, face pale. She didn't bother asking what was happening, just waved. "In here!"

She slammed the door behind them as they stumbled through. Leon nearly crashed into a chair before he could stop himself. Grabbing the back of it, he leaned against its support as he struggled to catch his breath. Under normal circumstances, a short run like that shouldn't have fatigued him so much. But it was late, he'd been on his feet for hours, he could feel the ache in his shoulder spiking up again despite the painkillers, and between the cold shock of pure adrenaline and running at a full sprint, he was getting near his limit.

Claire was looking back and forth between him and Ada, although her eyes kept flickering uneasily towards the door. "Leon, what…?"

His limit would just have adjust itself. Gritting his teeth, Leon forced himself to straighten, ignoring the spots dancing in his vision and nearly blocking out the room around them. "No time," he said breathlessly. "Where…"

Far too close at hand, there was another _boom_ , and a spine-chilling roar.

Claire paled. "This way," she whispered, hands tight around her gun as she led the way past the massive shadow of an old-fashioned work desk, ignoring the stare of glassy eyes from the gloomy walls as she led them to…

Leon blinked as they stepped out of the classically furnished office into a narrow stairwell. "A secret door?" he asked, unable to keep the incredulous tone out of his voice. "Seriously?"

Claire's smile was tight and strained in the shadows. "That was my reaction," she admitted, before nodding towards the landing where the stairs turned, dimly lit from below. "Sherry's down there-"

"Wait," Ada hissed, glancing uneasily out into the office. "Is there a way to close this?"

Claire hesitated. "I don't know."

"Secret doors aren't much good if you have to leave them wide open," Leon suggested, turning. A careful look at the wall revealed a series of levers and pulleys, but it looked as if they were attached to some kind of latches on the outside – probably the mechanism used to open the door. Which meant…

Leon stepped back and away from the wall. If the latch to release it was _here_ , and it looked like the door slid open _that_ way… "Ada, the lever there!"

Ada didn't hesitate, grabbing the latch set across a wide slot in the wall and pulling it up. As soon as she did so, a panel slid out of the opening, the levers and pulleys shifting as it settled back into place with a _clack_ that seemed as loud as a gunshot as they were plunged into darkness.

For a long moment, none of them moved.

Finally, though, Claire shifted, the whisper of fabric startlingly loud in the quiet. "Downstairs," she breathed, barely more than a slightly fainter shadow by his side even after Leon's eyes had adjusted to the darkness; the office hadn't exactly been brightly lit, but now all they had was that faint gleam at the foot of the stairs.

They all descended carefully, easing their weight onto each step before committing to it in an effort to muffle any footsteps; none of them wanted to lead trouble to their hiding place. Luckily, the stairs were solid – concrete or stone, Leon wasn't sure, but either way, they absorbed each step with barely more than a soft _thmp_. Even so, Leon could feel his ears straining at every sound, trying to pick out the sound of unbalanced footsteps or moaning above.

By the time they'd reached the bottom, though, some of the tension had started to ease from Leon's shoulders. Going by the lag between the first crash and when that monster had come out on the mezzanine… by now, it should have reached the door to Irons's office. Either it couldn't figure out where they'd gone, or it had lost interest once they were out of sight. With luck, the delay would give them enough time to regroup and get out of here.

 _Not that luck's been much help lately_ , he thought wryly, pushing the door open.

"Claire, you're… _Leon_!"

Sherry moved in a blur, lunging forward to slam into his leg. "You're okay!" she cried, grabbing on tight with both arms and tentacles.

Almost in spite of himself, Leon had to smile, reaching down to ruffle her hair. At some point, she'd lost the worse of the dirt and clumps, and now he could make out the bright flaxen blonde hidden underneath the mess. "Hey, kiddo. Sorry to worry you."

A sharp inhale behind him. "Leon, _who_ …?"

 _Ah. Right._ Between the barricades breaking and the monster, he'd never actually gotten around to warning her, had he.

 _Nothing to do but brazen it out now_. "Right." Leon shifted slightly, so that he could see the other two. Ada was hesitating in the doorway, her face not so much hesitant as completely, dangerously _blank_.

 _But not shooting and not panicking. I'll take it._

"Ada, this is Claire," he said, tilting his head at the redhead watching Ada warily, her gun lowered to point at the floor but a tension in her arms silently promising that she would change that very quickly if she had to. "And the pixie here is Sherry."

Sherry looked up in surprise at her name, and Leon knew the exact moment that she suddenly realized there was a stranger in the room. With a startled sound, she was suddenly hiding behind Leon, peeking out from behind his leg to study the newcomer warily. "…Hi," she said, after a long moment.

"Hello," Ada said. "You're rather different."

Leon somehow wasn't even surprised that she'd gone straight for the throat of the matter.

What did surprise him, though, was that Sherry didn't flinch. Instead, her jaw set mulishly as she actually leaned out a little farther so that she could give the woman a proper _glower_. "I'm _not_ a monster," she declared. "Not unless I try to eat people. Leon said so. I wouldn't want to eat people anyway. That's _gross_. And Claire says that you never know where people have been, so it's stupid, too!"

Ada blinked, the blank expression shifting to nonplussed for just a moment. Then…

"… _pfft_ …"

Sherry's mouth dropped open. "Hey!" she cried, letting go of Leon entirely. "You're laughing at me!"

Ada brought her free hand up to cover her mouth, although it didn't exactly do much to hide the little hitch in her shoulders as she… yes, that really was a giggle. "I'm not," she assured the girl, laughter clear in her voice. "I'm laughing because I would have told you the same thing."

"Oh." Sherry frowned slightly, and then relaxed. "Okay."

Leon let out a silent breath, feeling his shoulders relax a bit. That was one crisis averted, at least.

But now that it was past, the rest of their situation pressed in on him. "Claire. You said you'd found a way out?"

The young woman had been watching Ada with wary, narrowed eyes; at Leon's question, she started slightly, shaking her head slightly as she reoriented her thoughts.

"Over there," she said, nodding towards the back of the room. In the shadow of the heavy table that took up most of the center of the room – and Leon had seen enough morgues to know that he didn't really want to look too closely at the shape underneath that heavy stained tarp – a trapdoor had been set into the floor. "That goes down into the sewer area – but there's a shuttle down there. I don't know where it goes, but Irons was trying to get out that way."

"What happened to him?" Ada asked. She was taking advantage of the pause to check her gun over and reload, but her attention was clearly on the conversation.

Claire shivered. "He… didn't make it."

"Zombies?" Leon asked, although that didn't quite seem to fit. How would zombies get into a secret passage that no one was supposed to know about?

Claire shook her head, hand tightening on the strap of the satchel she'd slung over her shoulder. "No, this was… something else. It looked… well, almost human. Except for the arm…"

Leon felt his eyes widen as he traded a worried glance with Ada. "The right arm? Swollen, oversized, like the muscles outgrew the skin?" he asked uneasily. "With a massive red eye in it?"

Claire's own eye had widened to the point where Leon could see the whites all around the iris. "Wait. You saw it?" she demanded. " _When_? Where?"

Leon nodded pointedly towards the door of the lab and the secret staircase leading. "It was right behind us."

Claire's mouth slowly closed, opened again, closed – and then she exploded. "You've got to be _kidding_ me – I put a grenade down that thing's throat! How is it still alive?"

Wait. Something that had taken a point blank grenade and _walked away_? Oh, this was not good…

Soft laughter suddenly broke the tension.

"Sorry," Ada said ruefully, eyes dancing. "It's just… who'd have thought that a zombie apocalypse would bring out all the _interesting_ people?"

Claire blinked at her, and then suddenly began giggling herself. Leon leaned against the wall, biting down a snicker of his own – and then failed when he glanced at Sherry, who was looking back and forth between them with an unmistakable look on her face: _grown-ups are_ weird _._

The laughter quickly passed, but Leon had to admit that he felt better for it. They'd _needed_ that.

But they weren't out of the woods yet. "Claire? You said there's a shuttle?"

Breathing deeply to help calm herself, Claire nodded. "An intra-city transport one, it looked like. There was an Umbrella logo on it."

 _Umbrella, huh?_ Leon glanced at Ada, who nodded.

"That must lead to the lab," she agreed, dark eyes sharp with interest.

Claire hesitated. "Lab?" she asked warily.

"I came to the city looking for my boyfriend," Ada explained, and her shoulders slumped slightly. "Although I'm not holding out much hope for him at this point…" Shaking her head, she went on. "John worked for Umbrella's research department. And… He didn't talk about it directly – I'm fairly certain it was supposed to be a company secret – but from what I gathered, Umbrella has an auxiliary lab somewhere underneath the city, where they conduct the more dangerous experiments." She huffed. "Somehow, I doubt the zoning commission would be pleased to hear about that."

Claire started to bite her lip before visibly catching herself. "Then… that might not be a good idea after all," she said slowly, grip tightening on her satchel strap. "The city is bad enough. That monster had a _lab coat_ on – it might have come from there. What if there are more?"

Leon grimaced. "Unfortunately, we don't really have a choice," he admitted.

"But – it didn't follow you down here. If we wait for it to leave the area…"

"Still won't help," he told her. "The zombies have broken through the barricade on the first floor. There's no way we're fighting our way out through that."

Claire paled. But a moment later, she squared her shoulders and nodded briskly. "Right." Glancing at her satchel, she asked, "What's your ammunition supply like? I picked up as much as I could when we left the S.T.A.R.S. office. And there are two grenades left. Apparently they don't put the big guy down for good, but they'll at least buy time."

"I'm good," Leon said, and glanced at Ada.

She made a face. "I have one full round left," she said, holding up her small, snub-nosed derringer. "But that's it. And your bullets won't work in this."

Leon grimaced. "Now I wish I'd picked up a backup when I went through the armory," he muttered. At the time, he'd mostly been focused on picking out the useable ammunition. There hadn't exactly been many guns left, anyway – from the look of it, they'd handed out nearly everything while trying to scramble a response to the zombies.

"Um…" A slight tug on the bottom of his vest made him blink, looking down to see Sherry peering up at him. She was still attached to his side, although her grip had eased a bit as her head turned this way and that to follow the conversation.

"What about that?" she asked, pointing to the shelves.

Following her pointing finger, Leon blinked. And then grinned. "Good pickup," he told her, making his way past the table and its suspicious shroud to lift the shotgun down. It was a recent model, clean and well-oiled; Irons had taken good care of it.

 _Guess that isn't a surprise. Taxidermy lab. Guy must have loved hunting._

A glance in the box next to it showed maybe two dozen shells, set into a neatly coiled belt. Not much, but a damn sight better than six small handgun bullets.

"Here," he said, passing the belt to Ada and waiting for her to set the rig in place before he handed over the gun itself. Irons must have been a pretty heavy guy; rather than try to shorten the straps and deal with the dangling ends, Ada extended them and simply wrapped them around her waist twice, adjusting it slightly so that the weight was evenly distributed. "Not sure how accurate that'll be at a distance – but up close, I wouldn't be surprised if you could take two down with one shot, if you aimed it right."

Ada's teeth flashed white in a sly smile. "My. Do I get flowers and chocolates next?"

 _Um._

And Claire was snickering now, darn it. "Okay," she said, starting for the trapdoor in the back. "In that case… let's get moving."

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

"Oof!" Stumbling back an unintentional step – thankfully, _not_ towards the broken railing, although she could feel Leon hovering at her shoulder just in case – Claire lowered Sherry down to the grating just a little bit faster than she'd really intended to. "You're heavier than you look."

Sherry's lips pursed, obviously trying to decide if she should take offense to that or not, and Claire chuckled, ruffling the girl's hair. "It's a good thing," she reassured her. "Just means you're tough!"

And in hindsight… Claire wasn't sure if those tentacles were built like a tail, with bone underneath, or like real tentacles, which were just layers of muscle over muscle… but either way, they had to be pretty dense, especially given the way Sherry used them to anchor herself sometimes. No wonder she was heavier than she looked – a lot of her weight was tied up in a part of her that didn't really _look_ like part of her natural body mass.

 _Balancing all that has to be a pain. We should keep an eye on that, just in case._

"All clear?" Ada asked quietly, still waiting up above.

"Just a second." Claire gently urged Sherry to move around her and join Leon, who had moved a little farther down the catwalk once he was sure Claire's footing was stable. He was mostly keeping watch on the far end of the catwalk now, although Claire honestly wasn't sure what any of them would _do_ if something like that monster showed up again. At least Leon had taken one of the grenades, even if he'd insisted that Claire hang on to the second.

 _"In this situation, we're unlikely to need more than one at a time,"_ he'd told her. _"Better to spread them out, just in case."_

Shaking her head slightly, Claire looked back up. "Clear," she called back. "Do you want any help?"

"Take this?" Ada lowered the shotgun by its strap.

Nodding, Claire reached up, catching the weapon when Ada dropped it the last few inches. Then she stepped back, clearing the space underneath the catwalk as Ada carefully set her grip on the edge of the opening and lowered herself down. The woman waited until her arms were fully extended, legs dangling – and then let go, landing surprisingly softly on the catwalk with a grace that Claire couldn't help feeling more than a little jealous of.

"Are you an acrobat or something?" she… okay, yes, that was a grumble, as she held out the shotgun.

Ada's lips twitched as she accepted it back, pulling the strap over her shoulder as she checked to make certain that her ammo rig hadn't slipped out of place. "I do take classes," she admitted. "I like to stay in shape."

"Everyone good?" Leon asked quietly.

Claire retrieved her handgun from the satchel, re-releasing the safety once it was in her hands again. Which went against all the rules of gun safety she'd learned – you _never_ released the safety until you were ready to shoot! – but hard experience had taught her that if a zombie caught them by surprise, that extra step was one more complication that she might not be able to afford. "We're ready."

Nodding, Leon started off down the walkway, moving slowly and steadily but not particularly trying to muffle his footsteps – with the four of them, trying to be stealthy on the rattling catwalk would have been a lost cause, anyway. He'd insisted on taking point, noting that he had training in moving into a potentially hostile area, and Claire had to grant that point.

It didn't change the fact that she was fairly certain that the _real_ reason he wanted to be in front was because if he succumbed to the infection without warning, he wanted to be in front of them, where they could see it and shoot him before he attacked any of them.

 _Don't let that happen. Please. It's been… I'm not even sure anymore, but it has to have been over an hour! And if this is a lab, maybe we'll find something that can help him…_

Claire and Sherry were in the center, keeping watch on either side. Ada was the rearguard, mostly because she was the shortest on usable ammunition. Claire wasn't sure she liked the woman – something about Ada was too _sharp_ , just a little too controlled after all the chaos they'd been through, like she was always calculating something. But she was competent, and right now, Claire could forgive a lot for that.

Nothing stirred as they crossed the catwalk and made their way down the stairs – although Leon hesitated for a moment at the top of the stairs, studying the blood splattered all over the top third of the staircase, so fresh that it still gleamed bright and wet in the places where it had pooled.

 _It's only been maybe half an hour, if that,_ Claire admitted to herself, picking her way down the stairs carefully. And if she made a point of avoiding the blood as much as possible… well, she wasn't the only one doing that.

It wasn't until they were past the worst of the gore-streaked stairs that an uneasy thought tapped Claire on the shoulder. _So what happened to the body?_

Granted, part of it had probably fallen over the edge, down into the darkness below. But she'd _heard_ something hit the grating, before. And it wasn't there now.

 _Not much I can do about that._ Other than maybe be a little bit grateful. Sherry was holding up well, even after her minor breakdown earlier, but she was just as glad to spare the kid the experience of seeing the dismembered pieces of someone Sherry _knew_. Bad Man or not.

There wasn't much to the platform at the base of the stairs. An open, octagonal space, industrial steel plates dull under the stark glare of a bright, bare white light overhead and adding the tang of raw steel to the scent of _cold_ and _damp_ already filling her nose, although there didn't seem to be a lot of moisture up in this area. On five sides, bare, minimalist guard rails were all that stood between the edge of the platform and complete darkness – and this _had_ to have started as a natural cave, because Claire could think of absolutely no logical reason why _anyone_ would hollow out this much space under the city without _using_ it for something.

Particularly given that the other three sides were set into solid stone – with the central section a gaping black maw of a tunnel, leading who-knew-where. A single guiderail ran out of the tunnel to meet the single shuttle-car resting in the center of the platform, about half the length of the standard city mass-transit shuttle, currently docked into a large block that looked like equipment of some kind. A simple stair led to a small platform on the end of the shuttle facing the tunnel and a half-open door leading inside.

 _Which is odd. This type of shuttle usually opens on the sides, for easier access._

Ada passed Claire as she hesitated at the edge of the light, the dark-haired woman making straight for the machinery. Leon's eyebrows rose slightly in surprise, but he followed her, a few steps back as his eyes kept a constant scan on their surroundings.

Claire was a little slower to follow. Something about this place had all the hair on her body prickling uneasily, although she wasn't entirely certain _why_. But Sherry seemed to feel it too. As soon as they stepped into the light, the little girl latched onto Claire's side and stayed there, pressed so close that Claire could feel the faint trembling shaking her small body. Which might have been nerves, or the cold air wafting up from the darkness below, or just the sheer _weight_ of the stillness and the silence.

Or something else entirely. One thing, Claire was sure of: something wasn't right here. She just didn't know if it was the kind of _not right_ that was going to jump out and kill them… or the inherent _not right_ -ness of the entire setup in the first place.

Ada made a thoughtful sound as she stepped back from the mechanism. "A control station, I think," she said. "It looks like it takes a key card of some kind to activate, and a passcode to release the shuttle to its destination." She nodded the dark tunnel.

Claire blinked. "You mean, someone outside the car has to operate it?" she asked, startled. Everything she'd seen here – _everything_ – said that this was some sort of secret operation. She couldn't picture Irons bringing a compatriot in.

"I imagine it can be launched from the inside as well," Ada said, shrugging slightly. "But it's definitely designed to be controlled by an outside operator if necessary."

"Makes sense," Leon said thoughtfully.

Claire found herself exchanging startled glances with Ada. "How?" she demanded.

Leon shrugged. "If Irons was just trading information with Umbrella, he wouldn't _need_ a set-up like this. Even if he didn't trust remote communications… chief of police is as much a political job as it is law enforcement, and Umbrella basically runs the city. It would be easy to come up with reasons for him to drop by their main office. It would be more suspicious if he _didn't_." He tilted his head towards the shuttle. "That's too big for just one person to ride. Which means this whole thing is set up for Irons to transport something, likely on at least a semi-regular basis."

"Like what?" Ada said, frowning.

"No idea. And I'm kind of scared to wonder," Leon admitted. "Although right now, I'm more worried about how _we're_ going to get it to work."

Ada hesitated, ever so slightly – and then seemed to come to a decision. "I can get us past the passcode," she said, quietly confident.

Claire's eyes widened. Yes, most systems were hackable, given time and assuming you didn't get caught or locked out in the process. But to be _that_ confident she could hack a system she didn't know…

There were really only two types of people who could pull something like that off. And if Ada were a government agent, surely she would have _said_ something.

Leon's eyebrows had shot up – but after a moment, he slowly nodded. "This is me officially Not Asking," he said, the faintest touch of wry amusement in his voice. "Can you get past the key as well?"

"That depends," Ada said, brisk and professional now. "If it's an electronic key, then yes. But if the key is required to physically complete the circuits… that would require equipment I don't have here. I _might_ still be able to, but it would take hours, at least." A tiny, rueful smile tugged at her lips. "This is _really_ not how I planned on spending my evening."

Which raised the question of what she _had_ been planning on, but… "Oh no," Claire breathed. "Irons… he must have been carrying the key. But…" Almost unwillingly, she glanced back at the bloody, _bodyless_ stairs.

Leon followed her gaze and grimaced. "All right," he said at last, visibly bracing himself. "Ada… go ahead and see what you can do with what we have. We'll search the area. Maybe luck was with us for once and Irons dropped it out here before he died."

"And if it's not?" Claire asked, trying not to sound too skeptical. Luck was the last thing she wanted to count on right now.

Leon looked out over the edge of the platform, into the darkness. "Then either we try our hands at spelunking… or we settle in for what could be a very long walk." He nodded towards the tunnel.

There was a heavy metallic _clunk_ – when Claire turned to look, Ada had opened up a hatch in the base of the equipment. "Go ahead," she said, voice slightly distracted as her eyes narrowed in concentration. "I'll do what I can out here for now. The systems are linked at this stage, so I should at least be able to manage the first part from here."

Sighing, Claire nodded, and then turned, starting for the stairs at the head of the shuttle. If Irons _had_ been trying to escape this way, that was the farthest he would have gone. Maybe they'd be _really_ lucky and the key would already be inside the shuttle – the door was open, after all…

A sharp tug on her jacket brought her up short in surprise.

"Sherry?" Frowning, she glanced back over her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

Wide blue eyes were sweeping the platform, and the darkness beyond. "Something's _here_ ," Sherry whispered, huddling close, as if she wanted to hide behind Claire but didn't dare stop her search. Her tentacles were twitching, the fuzz on them rippling ever so slightly as though testing the air, while stray strands of bright blond were curling this way and that. "Something bad."

Leon had paused, Sherry's whisper just loud enough for him to catch it. "What do you mean?" he asked, voice dropping as well.

"I don't _know_!" The tone and tension in Sherry's voice was practically a wail – but the volume never rose above a whisper. "But it's hungry, and it's waiting, and it's… just _wrong_."

Ice running down her spine, Claire jerked her head up, scanning their surroundings again.

There weren't exactly many places to _hide_ down here, unless it was in the dark, empty space beyond the circle of too-bright light that was the platform. The platform itself was almost bare, nothing casting a shadow on the plain metal flooring except for the four of them, the docking equipment where Ada stood, and the shuttle…

The open shuttle. The shuttle that was also cutting off their view of anything that might be on the _other side_.

Leon's eyes were narrowed and dangerous when they glanced at each other again – he'd figured it out, too. Drawing in a careful, slow breath, Claire hefted her gun and gestured to herself before tilting her head slightly, looking pointedly at the far end of the shuttle, with its staircase and the door looking out into the tunnel. For a moment, it looked like Leon was going to argue, but finally he grimaced and nodded ever so slightly, indicating the end of the shuttle locked into the dock with a quick glance of his own.

Bracing herself, Claire started moving towards the far end of the shuttle. This time, Sherry moved with her, a whisper-quiet presence that radiated focused _intent_ so strongly that Claire almost could feel it like a physical pressure against her skin. Claire did her best to stay equally quiet as she moved; at least the solid steel plates of the platform didn't _rattle_ the way the catwalk had, but her boots were designed for hard walking and protection if her jetbike crashed for some reason, not stealth.

After a moment's consideration, Claire swung wide as she walked, keeping a significant distance from the shuttle and that open door. Better to clear the outside before risking the close quarters of the shuttle itself.

But the far side of the platform looked clear. Which left…

Gun leveled and ready, Claire took a few more steps sideways, until she'd come around and was looking down the far side of the shuttle.

…Nothing. Just the empty platform, the shuttle, the dock – and a flicker of movement that resolved into Leon, as he cleared the other end as well.

 _Whatever this is… it's hiding._

Even if a zombie had been in the shuttle itself… they'd been talking right outside. The door was open. She'd have been visible through it.

Nothing they'd seen so far seemed to understand the concept of _ambush_. Not even the monster.

 _So what is it?_

Nodding to her, Leon began to pace forward along the length of the shuttle, eyes intent on the dark shadow underneath it. For her part, Claire began advancing slowly towards the stairs.

 _Wait. Something's under them!_

Her gun was leveled and ready almost before her conscious mind even realized she'd seen something. But it didn't move… and one step closer, and she suddenly realized _what_ she'd seen.

 _So that's what happened to Irons_.

Not that the pitiful mess really looked like a person at all, arms and legs disjointed and in pieces. It was almost like looking at a dismembered doll… if not for the reek of blood and more unpleasant things that seemed to hit her all at once, as if they'd just been waiting for her to realize what they actually _were_.

Although there were clearly pieces missing. Including the head. Claire didn't know if that was a kindness, or if it just made things worse.

 _Breathe._ Breathe _. We need to figure out what happened. You can do this._

Still… she gently waved for Sherry to step back as Leon came up to join them before bracing herself and stepping forward, breathing through her mouth as much as she could and trying desperately not to retch. Not just from the smell. Dead bodies, she'd almost gotten used to, but this…

 _It looks like he was sliced up like a piece of meat_. She was guiltily grateful for the stark shadows cast by the light. She didn't have to look _too_ closely-

In the shadows, something gleamed.

Starting, Claire narrowed her eyes, daring a step closer.

Poking halfway out of what probably had been the man's back pocket was a metallic rectangle, the face edged with fine lines that could almost pass for a miniaturized city map in their density and complexity.

 _That's got to be the key!_ Smiling in relief, Claire reached out.

 _Plip_.

Blinking, she froze, looking at the droplet that had just splashed down on her hand. As she watched, it began to ooze down the back of her palm, moving just a little too slowly, white bubbles of air caught in viscous liquid.

 _That's… not water_.

Feeling like she was moving in slow motion, Claire looked up.

Death _grinned_ with a thousand needle-sharp teeth. And dropped.

" _Ceiling-!_ "

Sudden impact threw Claire sideways – Sherry had tackled her, sending both of them tumbling across the steel floor, as _something_ landed where she'd just been standing.

 _Idiot, idiot, you_ knew _there was something out there that could climb-!_

Claire gritted her teeth, pushing herself halfway to her feet – and then diving for the gun she'd reflexively dropped when she fell, because _never drop your weapon_ was all well and good, but trying to hang on to a loaded and live weapon when she was tumbling head over heels was _begging_ for an ugly accident.

 _Crack! Crack! Crack!_

" _Shit_ that thing's fast!" Leon snarled, twisting in his shooter's crouch as he tried to keep a bead on…

Claire honestly wasn't sure _what_ it was. She hadn't really made out more than _teeth_ and _falling straight at me_ before. And now…

It moved in sharp, quick spurts, like a four-legged wolf spider, skittering fast and erratic across the steel flooring as it circled around them, making short, threatening darts in and out, as if testing their response. Claire couldn't seem to make _sense_ of what it looked like – just a blue of blood-red and fleshy pink and an odd, almost translucent hint of white-

And the long, bone-white talons that bit gouges into solid steel as the thing cornered sharply, lunging in at them and then diving away when Leon fired, dodging the bullet by no more than a hair.

"What _is_ that thing?" she gasped.

"No idea," Leon replied, "but…"

More gunfire. On the _other_ side of the shuttle.

 _There's more than one!_ "Go!" Claire snapped, already on the move, feeling Sherry keeping pace in her shadow. "We have to regroup!" Ada couldn't afford to lose many more bullets, and she was the only one who knew how to hack the security on this thing, they couldn't afford to lose her.

Leon fired almost as soon as he rounded the corner of the shuttle, and Claire saw another skitter of pink and red darting away – good, they had breathing room-

Sudden weight on her shoulders slammed Claire onto the flooring. Gritting her teeth, she twisted – just enough to see a needle-filled mouth open, and a tongue come out, out, out – that thing had to be at least two feet long, what the hell! – and heard an odd _wheezing_ , as if the thing's lungs were attached to the outside of its body…

A piercing _shriek_ , and the world faded.

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

Leon staggered. That scream wasn't just sound – it was _:fury_ , _denial_ , _death to those that threaten!:_ , hammering through his mind with actual, physical _force_ that shook his bones as though he was standing in the center of the climax of one of the old traditional drum performances-

The air _rippled_ , like a heat wave made visible. On the far side of the platform, railing _bent_ , one post actually breaking free of the platform with a scream of metal – a scream joined by a higher, shriller shriek as the creature that had attacked Ada crashed to the ground, flung by the edge of that strange wave of force. And for one moment, it _wasn't dodging_.

 _Got you!_

Sighting down his gun, Leon snapped off six more shots, focusing on the center of mass – what there was of it, with this strange, spindly thing. Only four hit, only enough to slow it… which was just enough for him to move closer, aim, and put one last shot through its head.

The thing exploded into motion – but this was spasmodic, uncontrolled, like the death throes of an insect that had met with the wrong chemical. Leon jumped back, out of the reach of those slashing claws, but it quickly became clear that the thing was no longer an active threat.

He turned, quickly taking in the rest of the group. Ada was leaning heavily against the machinery, her face as drawn and haggard as any student dealing with the aftermath of a three-night bender, but still on her feet. Claire was pushing herself back up to her feet, eyes wide. And Sherry…

Leon whistled.

Sherry slowly extracted herself from the eviscerated remnants of another creature, blue eyes glittering silver-bright and all but snapping electrical sparks of fury as her tentacles pulled back, showing barb-filled tips for just a moment before they furled closed again, bloody hands twitching with a gleam of – yes, those were definitely claws at her fingertips.

 _Who'd have thought. The kid's the most heavily armed out of all of us._ Pun intended.

Only, now that the adrenaline rush was past, Sherry was blinking, desperate rage fading into confusion and exhaustion, as though she couldn't wrap her mind around what she'd just done.

 _But alive._

Letting out a slow breath, Leon turned to take a closer look at the creature he'd killed; the one Sherry had gone after was in a few too many pieces.

It was roughly human-sized, maybe a little smaller. Proportioned like a human, as well – although Leon had seen the way it moved, there was no _way_ its hips were hinged like a human's. The skin was a mottled, red-veined pink – almost as though someone had stripped away the skin, or converted it to a transparent seal that showed every detail of muscle and arteries underneath.

The head was the part that had all the hairs on the back of Leon's neck shivering. The jaw was bad enough – a gaping maw that would have gone from ear to ear, if the thing _had_ any ears, an insanely long tongue lolling out between far too many needles of teeth. But _above_ that…

No eyes. Just a mass of corrugated, white tissue with the odd almost-translucence of fat, that looked unsettlingly like brain matter. As if the whole creature had been turned inside out. And between the brain, and the almost-human size and limbs…

 _The zombies were human. The monster we saw on the mezzanine must have started human. Was this…?_

Distracted, he didn't hear the whisper of talons on steel until Ada shouted, "Leon, _behind you_!" He whirled, taking in gaping jaws spraying spittle, talons gleaming-

 _The first one, we forgot about it…!_

 _Thwok_.

Leon dove to the side, already knowing that the thing was still dangerous until its death throes ended. Although how it kept twitching with a knife driven _through_ the place where the spine connected to the head and up into where the brain should be… well, he didn't want to think too much about that.

He did, however, plant a boot on its back long enough to pull the knife free. It was a bit of a risk, but… it belonged to Claire's brother. She'd want it back.

Not to mention, that made this the second time she'd saved his neck with the thing. He was getting a little attached to her having it, himself.

Something _clanged_ , a low hum vibrating through the platform, and Ada stepped back from the equipment. "The passcode's in," she called. "We just need the key!"

Wait. She'd been hacking _all this time_? Leon wasn't sure if he was terrified or impressed. Then again, no reason it couldn't be both.

"I think I've got it," Claire called back, ducking down behind the stairs again. She came up with something that gleamed flat and metallic in her hand. "Let's get _out_ of this place!"

"Wait!" Leon said sharply. "We don't know that there aren't more in there."

The run to the shuttle gave him enough momentum that he didn't need to bother with the stairs – he just jumped straight onto the small step in front of the door. At this point, stealth was a lost cause anyway; he went through the half-open door the way he'd been trained, going down into a roll that would carry him past any attempt to ambush him at the entrance and coming up facing the opening, gun raised and trained on the shadows of the ceiling.

Nothing moved. And more than that… it _felt_ empty, even as he swept his gun around in a full pan of the darkened shuttle, looking closely at the shadows of some sort of poles – handholds? Guiderails for equipment?

After a full ten seconds – he made himself count them out silently, not trusting his hammering heart to keep time – without anything leaping down at him or lunging out of the shadows, he allowed himself a sigh of relief. "Clear," he said, relaxing slightly as he rose back to his feet.

Claire and Sherry came through, the girl still obviously dazed. Ada followed behind them, dark eyes intently scanning the platform until she'd stepped inside, at which point she quickly looked over the interior.

"Here," she said, pointing at a small terminal next to the door. "The key should go in that slot."

The moment Claire slotted the odd card into place, the lights came on, a single row running down the center of the shuttle. Momentarily dazzled, Leon heard rather than saw the door of the car automatically swing closed, and then felt the subtle vibration under his feet that meant the shuttle was moving. His vision cleared a second or two later – just in time to see the small windows on the side go dark as they entered the tunnel.

For a long moment, all of them just _waited_. Then, almost as one, they sighed, slowly relaxing as the tension began to drain away at last.

"Well," Ada said, after a careful pause. "That's done, then."

Leon nodded, scanning the interior of the shuttle now that he could _see_ it properly. Oddly bare, even for the most basic transit shuttle – which hopefully was a sign that they wouldn't be in here for long. "We should get some rest, though," he cautioned. "Somehow, I suspect things are going to be interesting once we reach…"

He would have finished the sentence… except that he'd turned, and looked at what was in the _back_ of the shuttle.

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

When Leon's words abruptly cut short, Ada stiffened, turning quickly to look at him. They'd thought the shuttle was cleared, but if they'd been wrong…

There… wasn't really a word to describe the look on Leon's face. But given _what_ he was looking at… that didn't surprise her.

"I think I know what Irons was shipping to Umbrella," Leon said. His tone was light. Almost casual.

But if this were a special effects film, his eyes would likely have been sparkling black lightning, as he studied the array of small cells.

Claire gasped faintly. "That's… but… _how_?" she demanded. "You can't just – make people vanish and not get _noticed_!"

Normally, Ada rather enjoyed the way her mind was always one step ahead. Not at the moment. Because now that she had the pieces, she could _see_ it all come together. "Oh, but he could. There are _always_ people who are on the edges of the system, one way or another. Homeless. Drifters. Runaway. Petty criminals, even. And it would be so easy for him to arrange. He picks someone in the jail for the night. Has them brought to his office for a little _talk_. And then… just wait for the shift to change, and tell anyone who asks that he _let them leave with a warning_." She shook her head slightly. "Even if someone noticed that they vanished after that… people would just assume they'd skipped town. Irons _did_ have a reputation, after all."

Claire went white, then her cheeks flushed red with fury. "Instead of being sent to Umbrella as… what, _research_ materials? That doesn't make _sense_! Not to mention that it's illegal – we're not the freaking Satrapy!"

"The Satrapy has _codes_ about what human-based research is acceptable," Ada said sharply. Even the idiots in Minus Wave were careful to toe the line – if only because the kami had _opinions_ about what was and was not to be tolerated. "It's the Confederacy that likes to make monsters."

"And Umbrella, as a company, has a reputation to maintain," Leon said quietly. "But that's the scary thing about companies as entities. They tend to behave like psychopaths. So long as they don't get caught…"

A soft, shuddering inhale cut through the conversation with a force completely disproportionate to its volume. Startled, Ada turned to see Sherry staring at them, her eyes glassy and far too bright.

"I'm…" she started, only for her wavering voice to fail her as a tear slipped out, making a watery line through the blood-spatter on her face. "I'm… still not a monster. Right…?"

"Oh, _honey_." The rage vanished from Claire's face as the young woman picked the girl up, not hesitating in the slightest at the blood or the tentacles. "You're not a monster. You saved me back there. Twice. You were _awesome_."

The girl hiccupped a little, leaning heavily against Claire's shoulder. The redhead blinked, eyes suddenly lighting up, before she began patting at the pockets of her vest. "And I'll bet you're worn out after all that. I should have… here." She snapped one of the pockets open and pulled out a bar of chocolate.

Leon's eyebrows rose. "Huh. That's right. Psychokinesis." He shook his head. "Hang on a second – let's get that mess cleaned off a bit before you eat anything."

Claire winced. "Oof, good point. But I hate to use up our drinking water…"

"Use these." Ada opened up the first aid kit – she'd taken it from Leon, since his bad shoulder didn't need the added weight – and fished out a set of sterilizing wipes.

Getting the blood off of Sherry's face and hands took a minute, but soon she was munching her way through a bar of dark chocolate with a speed that was remarkable even for a stressed young girl, let alone one who'd just killed something. And not the slightest reaction to what a child would consider an unpleasantly bitter taste. Interesting.

"Claire's right, you know," Leon said, in a light, cheery tone that had Ada raising her eyebrows, because that tone promised _mischief_. "You're not a monster. You're a _badass_."

The _look_ on Sherry's face as her jaw dropped and she turned to stare at the man in shocked disbelief very nearly put Ada on the floor laughing. "…That's a _bad word_ ," Sherry said, eyes huge.

Claire was visibly biting back giggles as she wiped down her own hands. "No, it isn't. It's an awesome word," she said mischievously.

"Besides," Leon added with a shrug. "I'm pretty sure all of us have earned the right to use at least a _few_ bad words, in this mess."

Sherry blinked. "You can _earn_ bad words?" she asked, clearly fascinated.

Leon's smile turned a little wry, mischief shifting to something more rueful. "In a way. You've heard of magic words, right? You say them, and something helpful happens?"

Sherry's lips pursed. "That's kid story stuff."

"Yeah. But the thing is… if something really bad is happening? Bad words can do that," Leon told her, and Ada blinked, because the man's tone was completely serious. "They can make you just a little bit stronger, a little bit faster, a little bit tougher. _But_." He raised a warning finger. "The trick is: if you use them too much, if you even get used to _hearing_ them too much… then they lose their power. Which is why you should _never_ say them, unless something _really_ bad is happening."

"Really?" Claire asked curiously.

Leon nodded. "Last I heard, no one was one hundred percent sure _how_ it works. But it does," he said.

"Focus," Ada mused. "Swearing is rather like gathering a great deal of tension and frustration, and then letting it go in one breath. I can see how that would be helpful, under stress." She sighed, still listening with half an ear to the hum of the shuttle. It had yet to change in pitch, and between that and the stark darkness outside the small windows… there was a part of her that was _convinced_ they weren't actually going anywhere.

Come to think of it… "I was actually joking about the flowers and chocolates, but… do you have any more of that?" she asked Claire.

The redhead blinked, before patting at her vest again. "I think… yeah." Pulling out another bar, she said, "I try to keep a couple on me, just in case." Ripping the wrapper open, she looked at Leon.

He shook his head. "Not really hungry."

Scowling, Claire broke the bar into three pieces, tossing one of them to Ada before stubbornly holding out another for Leon. "Tough. It's been a long day for all of us, we need to eat _something_."

"And you more than us," Ada added pointedly. "You're the one who's injured."

Sighing, Leon gave in and accepted the offered piece of chocolate. And for all his reluctance, it vanished remarkably quickly. Claire had already gulped hers down with a speed that really didn't do any justice at all to what turned out to be quite good chocolate.

Ada had meant to savor her own piece – as a way to get her taste buds to convince her stomach that yes, it _was_ getting something, just be patient – but the minute the flavor hit her tongue, she gave up on trying to maintain that level of self-control. She was _tired_ , and it was far from over yet.

Just as well. The last of the chocolate vanished just as a slight shift in the hum, and the faint sense of falling _forward_ , told them that the shuttle was decelerating.

A few seconds later, the interior of the shuttle suddenly brightened as the windows went from dark to light again. Then the shuttle slowed even more, before settling in with a _clank_ that made the floor shiver.

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

AN: The game treats Leon's injury as effectively cosmetic – shock puts him down briefly (realistic, that; the human body does _not like_ having holes suddenly punched into it), and after that the character model changes… and there are no lingering effects. Pragmatically, however, even the relatively minor form of the injury that I gave him is in fact a _seriously limiting injury_. Our arms require our shoulders for mobility and support – any sort of weight-bearing effort _will_ put strain on it. And that is going to hurt like hell.

Claire's knack with knife throwing is a reference to the way that she and Leon met in one of the remakes of RE2.

Cool tidbit? Yes, Sherry would normally find dark chocolate too bitter. Children's tastebuds are highly sensitive to bitterness (part of why getting children to eat veggies is hard!); there's a reason dark chocolate is considered "adult" chocolate, and not just because it's a mild aphrodisiac.

As for Leon's comment about the powers of swearing? There's actual evidence that this _works_ – cursing has pain-numbing, muscle-strengthening, mind-focusing effects when under stress. But _only_ if you don't swear normally. If you're dropping F-bombs and four-letter words on a regular basis, swearing under stress has no beneficial effects whatsoever.

(And if you're wondering why Sherry didn't call him on swearing when the Lickers dropped in – super-fast creepy monsters radiating psychic wrongness, gunfire, and one heck of an adrenaline rush. She probably didn't hear a word of it!)


	5. No OSHA Compliance

**CHAPTER FIVE**

 **No OSHA Compliance**

* * *

A small handful of figures still wearing the bloodied and torn work suits of engineers stood scattered about the platform, swaying in place ever so slightly and barely stirring at the arrival of the shuttle.

"Blast." Positioned carefully beside the small window so that she could look out without being immediately visible to anyone – or thing – looking in, Claire felt her heart sink. She hadn't realized until this moment how much she'd been praying that the lab would be intact and untouched by the madness above. After all the security, surely it should have been safe!

"Probably just as well," Ada murmured, having taken the window by the door. When Claire turned to stare at her in shocked disbelief, the woman shrugged slightly. "I sincerely doubt that this place would be interested in welcoming uninvited guests," she said pointedly. "All things considered, I'd rather take my chances with zombies than with living guards carrying guns and with a vested interest in silencing any witnesses."

Cold. Callous. But, Claire had to admit, also the truth. Zombies were frightening, but they were also slow and simple. As long as you could just keep your distance, they weren't actually that dangerous, compared to armed people who could _think_.

"Either way, there's no point staying in here, now that we've arrived." Reaching down, Ada tested the latch.

It didn't budge.

Leon's quiet huff had an edge to it that said he probably would have cursed, if not for Sherry's presence. "I was afraid of that."

"Of what?" Claire asked – but even as the words left her mouth, she could guess. Given the effort to hide this shuttle system, and the probable use it had been put to, it would be stranger if there _weren't_ some sort of security on this end as well.

Ada crossed her arms. "So… now what? I don't see an escape hatch in here. Not surprising, given they were transporting prisoners. I might be able to hack the door open, but…" Her glance at the mechanism holding the key was dubious, and Claire couldn't really blame her. It didn't look like it was really designed to be much of an interface.

"We might have an alternative," Leon said thoughtfully. He moved up to the window of the door, peering out. "Ah-hah. There."

It took Claire a moment to triangulate what he was pointing at – standing at the side window, she had a distinctly different angle than he did. But eventually she spotted the small switchboard on the wall.

"This isn't like Irons's end – there's no particular need to use a passcode," Leon said. "It just needs someone on hand to take responsibility for the shipment before the door can be unlocked."

Particularly if Irons had really been shipping out _people_ , Claire agreed darkly.

"Hm." Ada pursed her lips. "So how do we get to it? I don't think Sherry has the control for that."

"Probably not, but…" Leon hesitated, then looked at Claire. "Sorry. Normally I wouldn't ask, it's your business, but… your brother was in S.T.A.R.S."

And as one nosy reporter had uncovered – and published, the fool – more than half of the S.T.A.R.S. members were trained Quincies. At least the man had gone the "heroic superhuman" angle rather than the "freaks of human meddling" route, although sometimes Claire wondered which one was actually worse.

"Chris got most of the talent in the family," she admitted. "I can't do much more than flick a light switch or open simple locks."

"You're a Quincy?" Ada blinked, but… at least she didn't seem upset, or disgusted.

"It's _cool_!" Sherry said enthusiastically, hugging Claire's waist.

Leon grinned. "Think you can push a button?"

Claire blinked, and then looked out across the platform again. The panel was on the far wall, definitely at the very edge of her range. But there was also a lot of metal around. That would make focusing harder, but it would also extend her reach, so… "As long as they're not too stiff," she judged. "But which one?"

"Let's start with, _not_ the big red one," Leon suggested wryly. "That's probably the alarm. Or, given the way the rest of this day has been going, the self destruct."

"Nobody's going to leave the _self destruct_ out in the open," Sherry huffed. "That only happens in stupid movies."

Claire looked down at her, and then at Leon. "Uh-oh. I think we have a future _proper_ Evil Overlord here," she said in a mock-whisper, winking at the girl, who giggled.

Ada's lips were visibly twitching, but the woman quickly hid her expression by peering out the window over Leon's shoulder again. "…Try the green button two panels over from the red one," she suggested.

Claire blinked, looking out again. _Wow. She must have really good eyes._ Even after a long minute of careful peering, she could only just _barely_ make out the button from the mass of switches.

Drawing in a deep, careful breath, she _reached_.

Something _clanked_ , the vibration running through the floor of the shuttle. Then, with a _clunk_ , the door released.

Claire exhaled heavily, leaning against the wall. "Oh. It worked," she said, a little breathless. "That's good." Her head was swimming, and there were little flashes of light dancing in the corner of her vision – warning that she'd pushed herself a little too hard. She'd been right about the metal – it had helped her reach far enough to get to the panel, but thrown her control off. And then there were the electrical cables, and she suddenly had a _fierce_ appreciation for why her mother had warned her to never, _ever_ try messing around with anything electronic.

At least she'd managed to hit the button. And probably a few others. It had worked. She wasn't going to complain.

Ada tested the latch again, nodding when it turned easily this time. Then she looked at Leon. "Do we have any kind of a plan?" she asked.

"Let's look for a terminal, or some kind of a map," he suggested. "This will be a lot easier if we have some idea of what our options are, and how to get to them."

Ada nodded. "It looked like there was a utility room off the docking platform," she noted. "That should have something, at least."

"Okay. We'll make that our first stop, then." Leon looked at Claire. "You okay?" he asked quietly.

Swallowing, Claire nodded and straightened. "Just a little dizzy for a minute. I'll be fine," she said. What she really wanted was some chocolate – but she'd only brought the two bars of her usual emergency stash with her. At least the bit she'd had earlier was starting to take effect, easing some of the worst of the nervous system overload that came with pushing psychic talents too far. Not exactly the theobromine-and-caffeine pills that Chris carried when he was on the job, but a lot tastier… and Claire had _never_ used her talent so much in a short span of time before.

Leon looked at her carefully, obviously trying to judge if she was being honest or putting on a brave face. Not that it would have made much difference; Ada was right, they couldn't stay here forever. Finally, though, he nodded slightly.

"All right," he said, and looked at Ada, who was waiting with her hand on the door. "Let's go."

They cleared the platform first; unless the utility room had a side door, they'd have to come back out again eventually, and the zombies were much easier to handle scattered across a large open space than they would be bunched up at the door with no room to retreat or maneuver. Claire and Leon dealt with those, Leon focusing on picking off the zombies farther away while Claire handled the ones that got too close to their position. Ada held her fire – except for putting one bullet neatly between an advancing zombie's eyes, when it lurched out from behind a piece of equipment, catching them off guard.

Fortunately, the utility room was unlocked – from the faint headache still lingering, Claire didn't think she was up to mustering the precise focus needed to manipulate a lock. But she couldn't help glancing at it as they entered the room.

"Something wrong?" Leon asked quietly, eyes skimming over the contents. It was a small room, Claire noted – a desk with a terminal set into it, which Ada made an immediate beeline for. Other than that, there was a filing cabinet, a few lockers, and a small bench or cot along the wall. With all four of them, it was noticeably cramped, even when Sherry hopped up onto the cot to give them a little extra space.

"That's a physical lock," Claire said, moving towards the lockers. They were open, but there wasn't much of use in them: a work shirt, a datapad with a trashy novel uploaded, and… what looked like someone's lunch. She eyed it for a minute – they were all hungry – but then thought better of it. She didn't know how long it had been there.

Not to mention, something in her rebelled at the thought of eating _anything_ out of a _secret biochemical lab_. Prepackaged or not.

Sighing, she pulled back, and then remembered she'd left her explanation hanging. "Umbrella is _rich_ – they're the top chemical research company in the Republic. But everything we've seen down here is… well, fairly basic." She blinked as a thought occurred to her. "The police station was using basic mechanical locks here and there, too."

"This area is transport and storage," Leon pointed out, closing the locker he'd been checking with a hint of disappointment – he must not have found much of use, either. "I suspect there's plenty of cutting edge technology, but it will be in the labs and the security systems. Here, they'd have gone for solidity and reliability. Especially since repairs would have been… complicated," he added, with a pointed glance at the shuttle visible through the utility room's window.

"And the keys?" Claire asked.

"If I'm going to guess? Security in case of power failure." Leon nodded to the door. "Magnetic and electronic locks installed on doors are generally designed to open if there's any sort of problem – it's a required safety feature. But at the police station… well, there are doors you really don't want opening without express permission. The cells, for example."

Claire thought about that, and a secret biochemical lab that involved human _cargo_ , and bit down a snarl. Especially when the last locker she opened turned out to be full of straitjackets, several in each of multiple sizes, hung neatly up like safety uniforms.

Where was Chris when she needed him? _He_ was the one with the training in how to make places go boom.

"There's also the fact that electronic locks are easier to fool, in a way," Ada said absently, still bent over the terminal. "Duplicating the code can be hard, but not impossible – and you don't do that on the spot. You can pick a physical lock, but that still takes time, which raises the chance of getting caught…" The screen flickered, light shifting on the woman's face as the display changed, and she straightened with a satisfied sound. "Ha. I've found the map for the compound…"

Her voice trailed off. Startled, Claire turned and moved to join her, feeling Leon looking over her shoulder.

"…That's _huge_." Her voice might have squeaked. Just a little.

Leon gingerly reached past them to manipulate the display, adjusting the angle so they could get a better sense of the sheer _scale_ : three sections radiating out from a central hub, each at least six levels. Workspaces, labs, other areas…

"There's no way they could have hidden the construction for this," he breathed. "Something this massive, right under the city? It doesn't matter _what_ security measures they used, people would have noticed. The only way you _could_ do something like this…"

"They must have built the city over _it_ , not the other way around," Claire agreed, feeling a little dizzy. "But… wouldn't that mean…?"

Leon's jaw set. "Building this… that would require cooperation from the planetary authorities. There's no other way to pull this off." His voice was almost level, but he had gone pale in a way that Claire doubted had anything to do with fatigue or injuries.

"I suppose that's not surprising," Ada mused.

Claire stared at her. " _What_?"

The woman huffed, resting her hip against the edge of the desk as she crossed her arms and looked at them pointedly. "This is _Umbrella Corporation_ we're talking about, here. The original creators of Panimmunity – that's what they're _named_ for, even. The Republic's first line of defense against the plagues and other biological weapons that the Confederation throws around like party favors. That means they have money, and more importantly, they have _influence_. Is it that surprising for the Republic to bend some regulations, when Umbrella is key to stopping the next Recluse Catarrh?"

Leon flinched ever so slightly at that. Claire couldn't blame him. She'd been too young at the time to remember the details, but she'd read about that. _Ugly mass death_ didn't begin to describe it.

For her own part, Claire's mind had locked in on one, ugly thought. "You mean… the Republic is _in_ on this," she said bleakly. "All this… it's _nothing new_ to them."

Leon started to answer, and then hesitated, visibly thinking his answer through. Finally, his shoulders slumped slightly. "I don't know," he said honestly. "All the subterfuge in Irons's office… if they had genuine official backing, there'd be no need for that. This lab as a whole – there's no way that it doesn't have under-the-table permission. But if I were to guess… it was originally designed like this as a way of keeping top-secret research safe. Like Ada said, Umbrella is the cutting edge of the Republic's biochemical and biomedical research. And the Confederacy knows that."

"Which explains what we saw in the sewers," Ada agreed. Her lips twitched faintly in a dark smile. "Apparently, those agents released something they weren't ready for."

Okay. That was interesting. But it didn't explain Leon's hesitation. " _But_ …?" Claire prompted pointedly, keeping her gaze fixed on Leon.

He grimaced. "Emergency services should have responded by now – if only to cordon the city off so that people like us don't walk into this mess. Planetary security has to have noticed _something_ , particularly because Umbrella _is_ right here. And yet…"

Claire turned that over in her mind. She did not like the feel of it at all… but it _fit_. "So what does this mean, for us, right now?" she asked. Because while the big picture helped, they were still trapped in a lab full of zombies, and possibly worse. Better to stay focused.

From the flicker of a smile on Leon's face, he understood her reasoning. As did Ada, who tilted her head slightly in a small nod. "For now, nothing," she said. "But it's worth keeping in mind. Once we get out of here, we'll need to be very careful. For multiple reasons," she added, eyes flicking briefly towards Sherry, who was sitting on the edge of the cot and swinging her feet idly. She almost looked bored, except for the solemn expression on her face and the way her tentacles were pulled in close to her body, as if for comfort.

Looking at her reminded Claire of an earlier thought. "Sherry… your parents work for Umbrella, right?"

Sherry nodded. "Yeah," she said, her voice a little smaller than normal.

Claire couldn't blame her. After everything that had happened… the girl had to be questioning her entire world. But… "Do you know if they worked down here?" Not that they would _tell_ their daughter that they worked in a secret lab, but…

Sherry bit her lip, and then slowly nodded again. "I… think maybe they did? Dad always complained about all the extra security they had to get into and out of. Mom too, sometimes."

Claire scowled. If Sherry's father _wasn't_ a zombie at this point, he was overdue for some Words, and possibly a punch in the face. Dedicating yourself to a career was all well and good, but children were supposed to take priority over that. Her own parents had been emphatic about that; they'd been security officers who loved the chase, but they'd been firm that they weren't coming off their desk jobs until Claire and Chris had been ready to fend for themselves. They'd only gone back to the field when Claire finished high school.

"It's a place to start," Ada said with a nod, hands hovering over the controls again. She glanced at Sherry. "What's your surname?"

"…Birkin."

Ada blinked. "Interesting," she murmured. "John mentioned that name a few times."

"Do you want to look for him?" Leon asked quietly. "John, I mean."

For just a moment, Ada's fingers paused, but she resumed typing a half-heartbeat later. "He was a lab tech, not a researcher. He wouldn't have been in a secured area." She sighed. "Honestly… we weren't that close. I liked him, but we both knew it wasn't likely to last. It was the _vanishing_ that bothered me, as much as anything else." The map suddenly zoomed in on one section, a small rectangle blinking white against the green-and-black background. "There. That should be William Birkin's office."

Claire straightened her shoulders, feeling… surprisingly better. Having a goal of some kind… it helped. "Looks like it's in a separate wing, but… that shouldn't be too far."

Ada nodded, glancing around, her eyes falling on the discarded data pad. Leaning past Claire, she plucked it up, blinking and letting out a soft, amused snort when she glanced at the contents before she efficiently swiped it away. "This should have access to the system," she explained to Claire's raised eyebrows. "I'd feel better if we had a copy of the map to carry with us, just in case."

"Just a minute." Leon had, sensibly, backed away a few steps to give everyone a little more space, although it put him out of reach of the terminal. "Before we leave… check for cargo areas."

Claire frowned. "Why?" she asked. "Isn't that where we are right now?"

"Logistics," he explained. "The shuttle from the police station would be enough to smuggle people in – but a facility this size is going to need supplies, and a _lot_ of them. Everything from lab equipment to rubber gloves for the cleaning staff. They have to ship all of that in somehow, and without being obvious about it."

Claire's eyes widened. "And if they're bringing things in… you think we can get out that way?"

"It's worth a try," Ada agreed, already skimming through some kind of listing. "We certainly can't go back the way we came…" She abruptly stopped scrolling, a startled look flashing across her face. "There's a shuttle bay."

Wait. "A city shuttle like the one we came in on, or…?"

"Inter-atmospheric. Apparently, they ship things in directly from off-planet." Ada visibly relaxed. "Good. That will make things much simpler for us."

Claire weighed that, and struggled to swallow with a throat that had gone painfully dry. "You think we're going to need to leave the planet."

"I think it would be a good idea." Ada's face was neutral, but her voice was solemn. "Based on what Leon said… All I know is, something has gone very wrong here, and the Republic was at least peripherally complicit." She grimaced. "And believe me… there is nothing more ruthless than a panicking bureaucrat trying to weasel out of blame."

"We're witnesses," Claire said slowly. "Which means… someone might decide the easiest way to deal with this is to _hide the evidence_."

Was this why Chris and the other members of S.T.A.R.S. had all vanished? Trying to keep one step ahead of the people who wanted this mess to simply go away, by any means possible? Or… had they not moved fast _enough_?

" _Someone_ needs to get word out about that," Leon said flatly. "What Umbrella was doing in here needs to be stopped, one way or another. But first, we need more information." He drew in a deep breath, wincing slightly as though it pained him a little. "And we need to be _absolutely_ certain that we're not taking the infectious agent off the planet with us. So let's go find that lab."

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

The moment he stepped out onto the catwalk, Leon was buffeted from all sides by the rush of air through the central shaft. Startled, he hesitated, grip tightening on the handrail at he glanced down.

The massive shaft plunged down into shadows, the sheer depth and _scale_ of it all making a fanciful voice in the back of his mind wonder why he didn't see any magma glowing at the bottom of it. Looking up… he quickly gave that up as his head swam, but it seemed to reach beyond the limited ring of light as well.

Shaking his head fiercely to clear it, he began moving forward, scanning their surroundings as he went. Not that there was much to look at – three catwalks jutting out from doors set in the sheer walls, each a narrow bridge of grating and wire suspended over empty space, joined at the center of the shaft by a small structure.

One blessing – there was no sign of life or movement as he stepped off the catwalk and out of the wind, into the darkened interior.

Claire came in after him, Sherry staying close to her side. Claire's ponytail was a free-flying mess, bright red strands tossed everywhere. The girl shoved the worst of it out of her face. "This place makes _no sense_!" she growled in frustration.

"It's Umbrella. In my experiences, any organization with that much power can get… strange. Add the lack of oversight in a secret facility, and… well." Ada stepped in behind them, dark eyes scanning the shadowed screens and the large terminal set in the center of the small room with interest. "Or were you referring so something in particular?"

"This whole shaft," Claire said. "It's… okay, so I'm no biochemist, but even I know that it's a bad idea to have a large open space with lots of moving air in a place where you have people working with potential viruses. Even if they're not airborne, it's too easy for something to get carried where it's not supposed to be – and there's always the risk of an unexpected mutation. To say nothing about the risk of a _poisonous gas_ spreading."

Leon couldn't fight down the reflexive shiver at that, remembering a balmy sea breeze turned deadly. And the panic that had spread as everyone realized the spaceport was too far, there was no way to get there in time. And no planet-bound building was completely airtight. Not enough to keep the miasma out.

If he were to guess, the shaft was probably intended as a way to avoid problems like that. Anything this deep underground needed serious ventilation to keep pockets of bad air from forming, regardless of hazardous chemicals. Likely, someone had decided that keeping each of the blocks on separate ventilation systems feeding into this central shaft, with its powerful upward draft – like a giant fume hood – was safer than anything interconnected.

 _…Nope. Still crazy_. Maybe they'd gotten the same designer who'd done the sewers and the station.

"And then there's this thing," Claire added, spreading her arms to take in the small, dark room. "If you're going to build a _giant air shaft_ – what's the point of putting something right in the middle of it?"

"If I were to guess? This is likely the center for security," Ada mused, eyeing the dark screens thoughtfully as she slowly began to pace around the room. "It's a centralized location – relatively easy access to any area of the lab. And anyone trying to reach the labs – from the cargo area, at least – would have to pass through it. Not necessarily the wisest arrangement…"

She suddenly came to a stop, studying one of the screens before dropping her eyes to the floor and sighing quietly. "…as it appears they discovered."

With a sinking feeling, Leon circled the central terminal, and paused when he found what she'd seen. The unmistakable stain of old blood on the floor.

Claire, who'd moved to look over Ada's shoulder, blinked. "But… we didn't see any zombies in here."

"I don't think they were killed by zombies," Leon said grimly, eyes tracking from the dried blood, to a smear on the edge of the catwalk.

 _That's one way to hide evidence, I guess. Or at least keep people guessing long enough to get in and out again._

And now that he was looking closer, and his eyes had adjusted a bit more, he could make out the other traces of a fight. Score marks on the side of a terminal. A few shattered monitors. An opened panel in the base of one of the central terminals, a broken wire or two poking out. He made a mental note to avoid those, in case the apparent powered-down state of the station was deceptive and they were still hot.

"Wait," Claire said, eyes narrowing. "You think someone broke in?"

Ada nodded thoughtfully. "Someone who came through the cargo area, if they managed to avoid the cameras there, could likely approach without being noticed. I doubt whoever was on duty here was all that vigilant."

And, so long as you had some idea what you were getting into… it wouldn't be that hard to get in here. In part _because_ everything in this lab was so secret. Odds were good that so long as nothing was scheduled and there were no automated alerts – for example, if the intruders had walked along the shuttle tunnel, the way they'd worried they might have to if they couldn't find the key – then no one would be paying much attention to the cargo area. And once they'd taken the security area – depending on how the system was set up, the attackers could have done any number of things.

Suddenly, Claire paled. "You don't think the people who broke in were…?"

It took a moment for Leon to connect the dots, but when he did, he couldn't help a sympathetic wince, even as he shook his head. "It wasn't S.T.A.R.S.," he said, a little surprised by his own confidence. "For one thing, if they'd had enough proof to pull off an operation like this, they'd have had enough to call in help. And they would have avoided killing anyone."

"And we found the bodies of at least some of the intruders in the sewers," Ada said. "At least, I assume that's who they were. S.T.A.R.S. members would have been carrying insignia of some kind." She grimaced. "I suppose, in hindsight, I can't blame that woman for shooting at me."

True. Although personally, Leon retained the right to be at least a _little_ cranky about anyone who pulled a trigger without knowing exactly what a situation was. Then again, most people didn't have to answer to the courts for every single shot fired.

 _At least that's one thing I_ don't _have to worry about in this situation._

Leon looked down at that open panel, and then over to Ada. "Do you think you can get into the system from here?"

Ada eyed the terminals for a moment before moving over to one of the undamaged ones. Claire and Sherry shifted aside to give her space, although Sherry leaned out away from Claire slightly, to watch in wide-eyed fascination as Ada's fingers danced over the controls. A moment later, however, and Ada rocked back onto her heels with a sigh.

"No luck," she said regretfully. "Someone's set the entire system into standby mode. To break it, I'd need to restart, and I don't have the codes. And I really don't think we have the time for me to hack my way through with what I have."

"You hacked the shuttle controls to get us here, and can't hack a computer?" Claire asked dubiously.

Ada huffed slightly. "The shuttle controls _were_ a computer, and a very simple one at that. Plus, they had an active power source. There's only so much any hacker can do when the system you're trying to hack doesn't have enough power to boot up."

Leon shrugged his good shoulder philosophically, not entirely surprised. First rule of any break-in: do what you could to make certain that no hostiles could come in at your back, physically, electronically or otherwise. It worked for cops trying to rescue hostages or secure a suspect from a fortified location; he suspected that crooks and secret operatives would follow similar rules. "So we move on without it. At least the doors still work."

Ada nodded towards the catwalk on the right, emergency lights glowing dim blue along either side of the walkway in contrast to the yellow they'd taken from the cargo area and the red leading straight ahead. "Birkin's office should be that way."

Maybe he shouldn't have made that comment about doors. When they pushed the switch, the door leading to the laboratory area rose to about knee level, then stalled. When he reached down and pulled – with Sherry keeping a wary eye under the door, in case something was waiting to bite his fingers off or lash out through the opening – he discovered it wasn't stuck, exactly. It almost felt as though the motor lifting the door didn't have enough power to raise it the rest of the way on its own. A light tug was all it took for the door to roll up the rest of the way.

Immediately, he noticed the sharp, stinging scent of ozone hovering in the air. The hallway beyond was dim; two lights had gone out, and the others were flickering erratically in a way that sent a jolt through his nerves, because in these conditions it would be very hard to make out if something was actually moving, and the _bzzt-bzzt-buzzzz_ was enough to set his teeth on edge…

"What _happened_ here?" Claire breathed, easing past Leon as he stood with his hand still raised warily under the edge of the door. He didn't _think_ it was going to come down again – he'd felt something ratchet into position once the door was fully open – but he didn't exactly trust it not to, either.

 _At least if it does, we should still be able to get it open again. Looks like it's mechanically spring-loaded to open partially when you push the button, even if the power isn't working._

"Good question." Ada kept her voice low as well, eyes sweeping the hallway as she stepped through herself. "The power was low in the other areas, but it wasn't _down_. Something must have damaged the grid."

Sherry swallowed, face pale even in the unsteady light, and Leon winced in sympathy. This mess was bad enough for the rest of them, and _they_ didn't have parents who might or might not be dead – or worse – in the thick of all this.

With everyone through, he finally stepped away from the door. For a moment, he considered closing it behind them, but there weren't any zombies to follow them from the central hub. After the warped man they'd seen in the station, and those monsters from the shuttle platform… Leon wanted a better idea of what they'd be facing before he even considered closing off an escape route. They might have to make a very hasty exit.

Checking his grip on his gun, Leon moved forward to where the hallway they were in ended in a T-intersection. The lighting was noticeably better in the new corridor – ironically, because the main lights had gone out entirely, allowing the low-powered LED emergency lights to come on, running on independent power sources insulated from whatever had hit the main grid.

Leon eased his way to the right-hand corner, keeping a wary eye on the left-hand branch of the corridor as it came into view and relying on his ears to warn him if something was dangerously close in the other direction. When the left side proved empty, and he didn't hear anything, he risked a quick glance around the edge, and then finally relaxed slightly.

"Clear," he murmured, stepping out into the intersection. "Ada, which way to Birkin's office?"

Because maybe they hadn't seen any zombies since the shuttle platform – but there was _something_ very, very wrong about this place. The sooner they could leave, the happier he would be.

Ada tilted her head to the right, dark eyes steadily scanning the shadows on the walls and ceiling. "That way."

The hallway ended abruptly with a heavy set of double-doors, the sort Leon would expect to see on a walk-in safe rather than a chemical lab. Frowning slightly, Leon moved to listen at them – and then stopped. Doors that heavy would seal sound in, as well. The odds of _hearing_ anything were low. Which meant they'd have to go in blind…

 _Wait_. Leon glanced down, to where Sherry had drifted a few steps forward, blue eyes bright with a mixture of anxiety and pure curiosity. "Do you hear or… _feel_ anything?" he asked quietly. "The way you did before?"

The girl blinked, startled for a moment, and then pursed her lips, brow furrowing with concentration as her eyes went slightly out of focus, her attention clearly redirected to her other senses.

"I don't think there are any monsters, not nearby," she said slowly. "Not those licking things, anyway. But… I don't think I can feel zombies that way."

"Oh?"

Sherry's foot scuffed flooring tiles that were surprisingly clean, but clearly worn down from use. "It's… the Lickers kind of _buzz_. Like static. Only it's not static, it's… hungry, hunting. Zombies are just kind of… there."

"Pulses," Claire said quietly. "It sounds like you're picking up some kind of electromagnetic pulses." She grimaced. "Brain activity puts out low-level pulses, all the time; it's part of the electric charge in the nerves. The Lickers… they're at least smart enough to know how to ambush people. I guess zombies… aren't."

After a moment's careful consideration, Leon decided to consider that a blessing of sorts. At least it meant that the victims weren't suffering. And they weren't killing people who could be saved. Neural regeneration… they'd come a long way from the pre-space days when that wasn't even possible, and stroke victims or people who'd suffered oxygen deprivation were doomed to live the rest of their lives with part of their brains just _gone_. But even the best techniques today could only restore function if the majority of the brain was still undamaged. Complete brain death was still _death_.

"Thanks," he said, honestly. Strange, how dealing with zombies was actually almost comforting now. "Keep an eye out, okay? Last time, we didn't know where they were until they fell on us, but you at least _knew_ they were there. We're counting on you to keep warning us."

Sherry nodded, eyes brightening with eagerness at having an important job to do, and sensibly retreated back to Claire's side as Leon reached down, gripping the handle, and turned it.

Or tried to, rather. The heavy handle inset into the door didn't even so much as rattle.

"What the…?"

"Let me." Ada stepped forward, testing the handle herself before running light fingers against the join between the two doors, dropping down to a kneeling position to put her eye up against first the crack between the doors, and then the slot that was probably the place for the key. "Ah. I thought so. It's been jammed – a simple lock wouldn't have stuck like that. I'm guessing that someone came this way, and wanted to be certain they wouldn't be followed."

Claire groaned. "You mean we can't get in? Can we maybe circle around from the other direction?" she asked.

Ada glanced over her shoulder, smiling slightly. "Don't be silly. Just give me a minute or two, I can get it open." Reaching into the small handbag she was still carrying – although she'd looped and knotted it into the harness carrying the shotgun slugs, so that it hung like a pouch against her hip rather than swinging loose – she pulled out what seemed to be several long, flat pieces of metal, and leaned in.

 _So while she didn't bring a hacker's kit into town… she did bring the tools to break in to something_ , Leon noted, turning so that he could keep an eye on the corridor behind them as he waited. Not that he really expected anything to sneak up on them – but he'd hate to be overconfident and wrong.

And, well… not exactly plausible deniability, maybe, but at least he could say that he hadn't actually _seen_ Ada picking a high-security lock.

Although he wasn't exactly surprised she could, either.

"Is anyone else worried about _why_ someone went out of their way to jam the door?" Claire asked, voice low and quiet. "That's not really something you have to do if it's zombies you're worried about."

"They may not have realized that," Leon replied, keeping his tone neutral.

A heavy _clunk_ echoed through the hallway, and Ada straightened. "One way or another, we'll have to find out," she said, already tucking her tools back into her purse as she stepped back to resume her position as the rearguard.

Leon braced himself as he moved up to the door. Ada had eased it open just a hair – enough to prevent the latch from re-engaging. With a silent nod of thanks over his shoulder, he set his foot against the door and pushed it fully open.

Immediately, he heard a familiar low groan, as two figures farther down the new hallway turned at the sound and began shambling forward.

Leon registered _both male_ and _lab coats_ – and then did his best to turn that part of his mind off and simply see _hostile_ , keeping the rest of his mind occupied by watching the shadows of empty doors spaced along the short hallway for movement as he raised his gun, lining up his target.

Three shots – one on the first target, two on the second – and both of the zombies were down, hopefully permanently. Leon had to stifle a wry and not really well-timed laugh as he took a few steps forward to allow the rest of his team to come through the door behind him. _Well. One thing's for sure. All this practice has definitely improved my aim._

Although he probably was never going to be safe for law enforcement after this. He didn't think he'd be able to retrain himself to shoot for the center of mass rather than headshots again.

 _Worry about it later._ For now, his priority had to be ensuring there _would_ be a later.

And on that note… He took a moment to make sure of the two zombies in the hall when he reached them. He'd been surprised by one apparently dropped enemy already. He didn't want any of the others caught off guard, either.

They made their way through the facility slowly, pausing to make sure the offices behind the open doors were clear. None of them liked the added risk, but they liked the idea of a zombie coming out behind them even less. The closed doors, however, they left alone. No reason to invite extra trouble if they could avoid it.

Personally, Leon was doing his best to just… not try to picture what had happened here too vividly. It wasn't easy. From the look of things, this area, at least, was meant for offices and paperwork. It wouldn't have been just researchers in here. Any organization this big needed administrative staff, analysts… even something as simple as janitors. Although he supposed janitors weren't exactly simple, when the job involved potentially having to deal with lethally biohazardous materials.

And then something had gone wrong, and…

There were zombies in more than a few of those open offices.

From the thin line of Claire's lips, she was thinking along much the same lines. At least Sherry seemed to be distracted – she had a firm grip on Claire's belt, but her attention was turned inwards, listening to whatever extrasensory feedback she was getting that would tell her if something else was nearby. And she was hardly Leon's kid, but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't proud of her anyway. She was _tough_ , and determined.

Ada didn't seem as disturbed – but she was distracted, both by watching their six and glancing at her downloaded map display each time they reached a possible turn, making certain that they stayed on course.

After several turns, she paused, studying the map again for several seconds before pointing to a closed door. "That way. There should be a staircase leading down to the laboratory level, on the other side of a large room."

"They don't have an office up here?" Claire asked.

"It seems not." Ada slid the data pad back into her handbag. "Apparently the Doctors Birkin preferred to stay close to their experiments."

Leon hesitated before his hand actually touched the handle. "Do we know what they were researching?" he asked carefully.

"Not… exactly," Claire said hesitantly, eyes darting momentarily towards Sherry, whose own eyes had refocused on her surroundings and were darting back and forth between the adults, clearly aware of the conversation. "I mean…"

"They didn't talk a lot about work. Not in front of me, anyway," Sherry said quietly. "I don't think they wanted me to know."

"That may not have been because of their specific work," Ada offered. "Umbrella Corp is infamous for its draconian policies on corporate security…"

Sherry shook her head. "Dad… Dad was mad that he wasn't allowed to study Quincies," she said, looking at Claire. "That's… bad. Isn't it?"

Claire hesitated. "It's… not a good sign," she admitted at last.

Especially if Sherry's mother had had access to a vaccine for whatever had caused this, Leon silently agreed. That strongly suggested that she'd been involved in creating zombies in the first place.

"On the other hand, that means their lab will be a good place to start looking for answers down here," Ada reminded them.

 _And we'd better pray we don't find anything worse_ , Leon thought grimly. _I'm not sure we can handle many more surprises._

The rush of cold air as the door swung open was a shock. What it revealed…

 _I just had to jinx it_ , Leon thought ruefully.

It looked like they'd found… some kind of conference room, maybe. Or possibly a second security center, going by the screens running along the curve of the outer wall. All of them completely dark save for the occasional glint of the emergency lights.

Which… wasn't exactly surprising. Given that the inner wall had been completely destroyed by what looked like the Grapevine of Doom bursting out of the floor and wall, clinging to what was left of the wall all the way up to the ceiling, where thick woody tendrils had stretched out across most of the surface, dislodging the lights and digging into the stone, even if it had apparently been stymied from climbing any further. The only reason it hadn't covered the far end of the room entirely, at least that Leon could see, was that apparently the destroyed wall had connected to some kind of walk-in freezer, and the area around the door at the other end was protected by an arc of frosted white that covered nearly the entire floor and arced up onto the wall.

No wonder the power had been so erratic in the lab. That thing must have broken straight through the network on its way up. Leon doubted the system had been designed to compensate for massive structural damage.

"What… _is_ that?" Claire stared, not even seeming to notice that she was rubbing at her bare arms as she peered over Leon's shoulder. Warily, he stepped in and to the side, not quite willing to approach the strange plant.

"It's certainly… different?" Ada said, sounding thoroughly nonplussed. "I'm not sure I want to know what the scientists were drinking down here."

"Whatever it was, they needed less of it and probably a lot more sunlight." Leon hesitated. "Pun not quite intended," he added, before giving in to a sigh. "This is going to be a problem."

"Why… oh." Claire visibly bit back a curse as she followed Leon's gaze to the massive crack in the floor. The hole was as wide across as the vine itself where it came up through the corner between wall and floor, and stretched all the way across to the far wall. It was narrower there – only about two feet across, easily jumpable except that Leon didn't trust the stability of the remaining floor at all. "Ada, is there any other way to get to those stairs?"

The woman pulled out the data pad again. "Yes, I think," she said. "But I'm not sure I trust that route. It leads past several laboratories, and…" She eyed the massive vine, letting the sheer _absurdity_ of it speak for itself.

Which… was a point Leon couldn't exactly argue with, he had to admit. Zombies, Lickers, and now super-sized greenery. Whatever was in the water down here, he _really_ hoped that they hadn't shared the formula with anyone else.

On the other hand… "I don't think we have a lot of options."

"We could climb?"

Startled, Leon looked down. "Sherry?"

The girl stepped past him, each footfall as deliberate as a cat stalking across dry twigs. She began very carefully to make her way across the floor, staying close to the inner wall and pausing after each step to listen and… well, _:listen:_ in some sort of way, the short blonde strands swaying in the still air.

Just as Claire stirred, clearly meaning to call the girl back, she stopped, a few steps short of where the vine had broken through. "Look," Sherry said, her voice quiet, and waved at the vine, to where a large burl – probably the result of the pressure needed to break through the floor from below – ran nearly the entire width of the vine, the top just a little bit higher than the floor itself. "I don't… there's something nearby, but I don't think this is still growing. We should be able to climb across, right?"

Leon blinked, doing a mental double-take. He'd been looking at the plant as an obstacle. But actually _looking_ at it… There were small tendrils – rootlets, maybe? – and enough variation in the surface to provide handholds, while the burl Sherry had pointed out was… not exactly a stable ledge, but at least enough for provide a reasonable foothold to anyone attempting to cross. It would be doable.

He glanced at Ada and Claire. "Thoughts?"

Claire was fidgeting slightly, obviously uneasy at the thought of getting any closer – and Leon couldn't blame her, at this point he wasn't going to assume that _anything_ was harmless down here. But Ada looked intrigued, and perhaps a little hopeful.

"It might work," she murmured. "Personally, I'm in favor of keeping our time down here as brief as we can."

"We haven't seen that many zombies," Claire objected.

"Thus far. But I'm more concerned with potential exposure," Ada said pointedly. "Umbrella develops the Panimmunity treatments, remember? They would have samples of everything from the bubonic plague, to Strickland's, to the Recluse Catarrh… and we can't count on the containment to have held."

She nodded significantly at the frosted-over area at the far end of the room, a silent invitation to wonder about what _other_ damage might have been done in the complex. Leon had to bite back a shudder, while Claire paled.

"On the other hand," Ada admitted, "we don't even know if the floor on the other side is stable. The last thing we need is to get across only to find out that it's ready to collapse under our feet…"

"I'll check!"

"Sherry, don't-!" Claire started sharply – but it was too late. Quick as a kitten who only had eyes for a small fly flitting about just out of pouncing range, Sherry had scrambled up onto the burl and was skittering across, tentacles anchoring her to the side of the vine as she all but skipped her way around the curve of the vine and out of sight. Swearing under her breath, Claire launched into a run.

"Claire, wait!" Leon barked, trying to catch her arm as she passed – but he was a half-second too late, catching only air as Claire moved out of reach. Luckily, the floor proved stable enough to hold her weight without buckling, and she made it to the vine safely.

"It's okay!" Sherry called cheerfully from the far side, still out of sight. "There's a wall right under the floor here, it won't be a problem."

All right. Intellectually, that was interesting – apparently Sherry was able to sense the structure around her somehow? – but…

Leon heaved a frustrated sigh and allowed himself a moment to rub the side of his head. "Well, I guess the decision's been made for us," he said, a touch ungraciously maybe, as Claire pulled herself up onto the vine.

"At least we saved some time this way," Ada offered, not even bothering to hide the amusement in her voice, before she began making her way along the wall as well.

Leon waited for her to start her own climb across before he began his own approach. He was the heaviest of their group; if the floor was going to give out, it would be under him. Not to mention that while Sherry had been able to cross without even pausing, the others were clearly having more difficulty without the four extra limbs. Claire in particular was having trouble – her heavy boots were meant for hoverbikes, hard walking, and added momentum if she had to kick someone; the heavy soles didn't have the flex and give needed for her to be able to grip the wood with her feet properly. At one hair-raising point, she slipped and nearly tumbled off the burl. Luckily, Ada's classy but practical black flats were better suited for climbing, and the woman had managed to catch up enough that she was able to reach out and steady Claire before the younger woman actually fell – although both of them paused for longer than was strictly necessary to catch their breaths before continuing.

Leon wasn't just heavier – like Claire, he was wearing boots designed more for combat than tree-climbing. He wasn't above watching them and taking mental notes on footholds and handholds. He was going to need all the help he could get.

Especially when the brief climb to get up onto the burl itself required him to support his weight with his left hand – and the half-forgotten shoulder wounds flared up into one white blur of fire that actually blanked out his vision for a moment. Gritting his teeth, Leon pushed through enough to secure a grip with his right hand, and then waited for his head to stop swimming, forcing himself to keep his breathing steady.

 _It's okay_ , he told himself. _You can do this. Just… take your time. We're not exactly on a schedule_.

At least, he hoped not. Although he supposed that this could be a good thing. He didn't think zombies knew how to climb. If he turned _now_ … well, all he had to do was let go.

When his vision cleared, he saw that Ada had paused, watching him with a hint of concern. "Are you alright?" she asked quietly.

He made himself nod. "My shoulder," he admitted. "I'll be fine. I just have to move slowly."

Ada pursed her lips, but didn't argue – although she also waited until he'd almost caught up before continuing onwards herself.

Bracing himself, Leon drew in a long, slow, careful breath – and then very deliberately blocked out _everything_ around him, until all that existed for him was the careful, slow rhythm of reaching for a handhold, testing it, shifting one foot forward until he found a place he could anchor it safely, testing that, then shifting his weight forward and starting the process over again. He was going to pay for this later – he was paying for it _now_ , because he wasn't exactly some Zen priest who could simply deny that the pain existed, and every time he shifted his arms he felt a bolt of pain shoot white-hot through his shoulder.

That was fine. It didn't have to be perfect. It just had to be _enough_.

Grip, and hold, and shift, and…

Leon blinked owlishly. He'd been concentrating so hard on the climb that it actually took a minute or two before the wall in front of him registered properly. He'd made his way all the way around to the far side of the vine.

He was dreading the scramble down to get off the vine – but as it turned out, the burl actually protruded over the floor slightly on this side. All he had to do was brace himself against the wall and slide down, and his feet were back on a flat, stable floor again.

At which point, he rather gracelessly sat down.

Ada crouched next to him, frowning. "There's more painkiller in the first aid kit," she said, one hand already on the strap of the makeshift backpack and ready to shrug it off.

Leon shook his head. "Save it," he said, a little breathlessly. "We may need it later. And if I take much more it's going to start messing with my head. We can't afford that." He wiped the sweat off his brow with his good hand and leaned back; the frost-covered wall actually felt good against his aching shoulder for the moment, even though he could see the way Ada was visibly resisting the urge to shiver. Claire, who didn't even have Ada's black leggings to protect her legs, wasn't even bothering to pretend, shifting her weight from foot to foot as she rubbed at her arms to keep her blood moving. Claire didn't even seem aware that she was doing it, peering anxiously at Leon's face as if to check that he was actually being honest. Whatever she saw must have convinced her, because her shoulders slumped slightly as she allowed herself a quiet sigh of relief.

Then the relief was replaced by a stern frown as she shifted her gaze.

The bright, proud smile on Sherry's face immediately faltered. "…What?" the girl asked, tentacles curling in close to her body as though trying to hide behind her.

"You _can't_ go running off like that, Sherry!" Claire scolded, eyes flashing. "What if there'd been more zombies on this side?"

Sherry's face fell. "But…" she started tentatively.

"And what about Leon?" Claire pressed. "He's hurt! What if he hadn't been able to climb across? He'd have been stuck back there!"

"…I'm sorry," Sherry whispered, face fallen and looking like the whole world had crumbled in on her, and Leon wondered if he should intercede. Yes, she'd been impulsive – but she'd been trying to help, and it wasn't like they hadn't followed her.

Claire seemed to have come to the same conclusion, though; she reached out and tugged the girl into a careful hug. "Remember, we've gotten this far because we're a _team_ ," she said. "We watch each other's backs – but that means we have to stay together."

"And on that note, we should keep going," Leon said, stretching his legs for just a moment before climbing back to his feet. Now that the strain of the climb was past, he was starting to shiver himself, as the sweat cooled and chilled his skin. But at least it had served its purpose; the worst of the pain had receded, and he felt clear-headed again.

Claire gave him a dubious, measuring glance, and Leon tried not to wonder just how bad he'd looked, if she was that skeptical. But whatever she saw in his face must have convinced her that, yes, he really had recovered, because she gave Sherry another squeeze, and then straightened up again. "Right. Hopefully, the lab won't be much farther?" She raised an eyebrow at Ada.

Ada nodded, not bothering to pull out the data pad this time. "The stairs should be right past that door," she said, nodding to the end of the room, where the lonely red glow of an EXIT sign lit up another of those heavy security doors that seemed to be standard practice in the lab.

Leon nodded, pulling out his gun again and carefully stretching his arm. Luck had been with him; yes, he was going to regret putting so much strain on it tomorrow, but for the moment he at least didn't seem to have exacerbated the damage.

Then he looked up, as Claire huffed a quiet laugh. "What?"

"Nothing. Just…" She waved at the vine. "It just occurred to me, we went to all that trouble to get across that thing, when we could have climbed _down_ and skipped a step or two." She glanced at him and winced. "Or… maybe not, I guess."

"Probably safer to stick to stairs for now. But we can at least keep it in mind for emergencies," Leon agreed. Sherry, at least, could probably move up or down the thing without any trouble, even if Leon was probably better off not even trying.

The hoarfrost crunched quietly under his feet as he turned away from the hole in the floor, tiny needles of ice melting away under the pressure of his weight and the marginal warmth of his boot-soles. Really, Leon was amazed that the frost had spread as far as it had; that had to be one seriously heavy-duty freezer. Now that he was closer, he could see where the vine had sent out thin root tendrils across the floor, only for them to wither in the cold.

Halfway to the door, he noticed the strange mass just on the edge of the circle of frost, in the shadow where the emergency lights didn't quite reach, the edges lit a dim red by the light from the exit sign.

Frowning, Leon waved for the others to stay a step or two back as he gingerly approached. His first thought had been that it was rubble from the destroyed wall; there was quite a bit of it scattered about the room, which said unsettling things about the force and speed with which the vine had broken through. Yes, the roots of a plant were strong enough to crack apart solid stone, given time. But they didn't usually sent the pieces _flying_ in the process.

But at he drew closer, Leon reconsidered. The shape just wasn't _right_ for rubble – the edges were too rounded, the overall volume too big to be a fragment of wall or floor. It almost looked like someone had mounded up blankets – or maybe dumped an entire compost pile's worth of weeds into one place…

Leon's next step brought his foot down on something cylindrical, making him stumble. Startled, he looked down.

A root. A thick, fleshy root that _recoiled_ out from under his foot, whipping back to the lump on the floor as, with a strange leafy rustle, the main mass reared up and twisted around to face him, resolving into a massive pod that almost looked like the berries on an ivy – until it suddenly separated into three flaps, each of which unfurled to reveal a virulent red underside.

For just a moment, Leon's mind refused to engage, as he stared at a creature straight out of a dozen bad _Revenge of the Plants_ books and movies – but his body hadn't forgotten the hard-learned lessons of the past few hours. He dodged to the side before his conscious mind even fully registered the way the thing reared back, petals flaring wide-

 _Red. In the wild, bright colors mean_ poison _…_

The green mist _hissed_ in the air, and even more as it fell to the floor, spitting and sizzling as it burned straight through the low industrial carpet and into the stone underneath. Grimacing, Leon circled, trying to keep its attention on himself so the others could flank it, keeping his gun leveled as he tried desperately to figure out _where_ to aim it.

 _How do you shoot a plant?_

The thing's… head, for lack of better term, followed him, twisting on the thick heavy stalk until the body caught up, rootlets gripping the ground like some kind of green sea star with far too many legs.

In the process, it separated from a smaller mass underneath it, and Leon gritted his teeth as he made out gaping ribs, flesh that didn't seem to have decayed so much as dissolved, and the remnants of what might have been a lab coat.

 _Carnivorous plants. Great…_

And letting himself get distracted was a mistake. Clumsy as those crawling roots seemed, it was a lot faster than he'd expected – and sidestepping the acid had put him into the alcove with the exit, he was boxed in…!

The sharp bark of a gunshot echoed in the small space, and the plant-thing hesitated for just a moment, stalk twisting the head around towards Ada, who'd deliberately stepped forward out of the apparent safe space created by the frost.

Gritting his teeth, Leon leveled his gun and fired off three quick shots – aiming low at the roots, half in the hope that they would be a vulnerable point and half to avoid hitting Ada on the far side if he missed. All three shots struck home, however… and did absolutely nothing, barely leaving holes seeping an odd clear sap behind as they sank into the base of the thing.

At least he'd accomplished one thing – the flower swiveled back towards him with a sound vaguely like a low, rustling _hiss_ , as what he'd originally taken to be some kind of leaves or additional rootlets rose up into long, whiplike tentacles. Grimacing, Leon fell back a step farther, putting the wall to one side. He didn't like restricting his room to move, but at least it wouldn't have as much space to lash out with those things…

Then Ada stepped in close, raised the shotgun, and blasted a shot almost point-blank into the back of the flower pod.

 _That_ hurt it. Fleshy plant matter flew as the plant let out another of those strange hisses. One of the three petals hung limp, only partially attached now, as the vine-like tendrils whipped around it furiously. But apparently even _that_ wasn't enough to disable the thing – it twisted back around, spitting acid and forcing Ada to hastily fall back.

"Leon – get out of there!"

"Love to!" he snapped back, a little more sharply than he'd intended, as he tucked under those lashing vines and tried to track Claire's voice. The redhead had circled around – towards the body? She was crouched next to it, clutching something in one hand and gesturing desperately for him to get clear. " _How_?"

"Hey, ivy!"

The plant didn't react to Sherry's shout. Not until a box crashed into it, tumbling to the ground – and spilling out something hard and white that bounced on the carpet and trailed thin streamers of white fog.

 _Dry ice?_

The plant _shrieked_ , rootlets peeling up from the ground as it recoiled from the chunks of frozen carbon dioxide as though burned – and Leon took a chance. Staying low, he dove through the weaving mass of roots and vines. One wild flail caught him on the side, throwing his intended landing off, and he hit the floor harder than he'd meant – but for once, he didn't even notice the complaint in his shoulder, as he rolled and came up onto his feet, quickly backing away to join Ada. And praying that Claire had a plan, because now she was the closest target-

 _Click_.

 _Fwoom_.

The sound the plant made was high and shrill with an almost metallic edge, grating against Leon's ears as blue and yellow-white flames roared across the floor, almost blinding him in the process. There were tiny dark patches where the flames dimmed, muffled by the cold and gas given off by the ice…

But it wasn't enough to protect the plant monster, which flailed madly as it jerked back and forth, and finally collapsed into a dark mass at the heart of the flames.

Claire edged her way around the fire, still clutching a small lighter in a white-knuckled hand. Now that the flames were starting to die down and his eyes had adjusted to the glare, Leon could see a plastic container lying at the edge of the fire not far from the corpse the plant had been rooted in, the edges of it curling and softening from the heat of the flames. The man must have tried to create a literal firewall, only to die before he could set it alight.

 _I'm sorry, but… thank you_ , he told the nameless lab tech silently. _Your efforts just saved my life_.

Claire stomped on a corner of the carpet that had started to smolder as the flames tried to expand beyond the quickly vanishing puddle of… lighter fluid of some kind, maybe? "Triffids," she said, her tone almost completely flat save for a hint of tremble around the edges of the words. "Most advanced biochemical research company in the world, practically no funding limits this side of the edge of the galaxy, cutting-edge medical research, and they decide to sit down and bioengineer _triffids_. What the _hell_. Couldn't they get their kicks out of playing with popcorn and superglue or something?"

"They definitely needed to get out more," Leon agreed, carefully stretching out his arms, focusing on keeping his movements slow and even until the shivery tension eased a bit. "Groupthink is a terrifying thing." He turned to glance at Ada. "You okay?"

She reached down, picking up her small derringer from where she'd dropped it on the floor. She checked the clip, then shook her head and stowed it back in her purse. "That's it for my bullets. I'm down to just this now." Patting the shotgun, she looked at Claire. "And believe it or not, but I don't think this one is on Umbrella. Not entirely, anyway."

Claire pursed her lips. "Oh? Because I'm not a fan of banning books, but there are a couple pre-space horror series that I'm seriously considering nominating right now."

Ada's lips twitched slightly. "I might even sign that nomination. But… I saw a report, a while ago. Something about Confederacy scientists unleashing plant chimerae on some of the frontier planets. I suspect Umbrella was researching the specimens to see if there was some way of countering them. Or just to find out how they pulled it off, in case the next bioweapon was based on similar principles." She glanced to the side. "That was clever, throwing dry ice at it. How did you figure that out?"

"Well…" Sherry hesitated, rubbing at her arms as she leaned against Claire's legs. "Dad took me into a different lab once. For Take Your Child to Work day. Only he was really busy, so he just filled a sink with water and dumped dry ice in it and told me to play. Mom yelled at him a lot. And…" She pointed at the patch of frost glittering in the light of the dying flames, although now the circle had a bite taken out of it as the heat from the fire melted the tiny ice crystals away. "It kind of looked like it didn't like the cold? We tried to grow a garden for a class project once, the teacher told us we had to be really careful about frost…"

"Good thinking," Leon said. The flames were barely more than flickers running along the edge of the carpet and gnawing at the plastic jug now that the fluid had mostly burned itself out. Bracing himself, he edged closer to the blackened leaves and stalk, trying to judge if the thing was really dead. It seemed to be. Or at least, it wasn't lashing out at him, even when he came within its range. Finally, he prodded it carefully with his foot, then carefully kicked the blackened mass open, only relaxing when he saw that it had seemingly burned through. "Ada, how close is Birkin's lab?" he asked, struck by a sudden, uneasy thought. "Is it in this area?"

Because fighting one of these things had been bad enough. If they ran into more… well, for some reason he'd neglected to bring a flamethrower when he'd set out for his first day of work. How very careless of him.

Apparently his inner monologue was punch-drunk. Oh well. Better flippant than gibbering.

Ada frowned, clearly following his line of thought, and quickly pulled out her pad again, long fingers tapping rapidly over the surface. After a moment, however, the tight line of her shoulders eased, ever so slightly. "It's not far," she said. "The next floor down, and about two doors after that. But it should take us away from this thing," she added, nodding slightly to indicate the massive vine behind them.

Leon allowed himself a brief sigh of relief. Away from the vine wasn't an assurance of safety. But at least zombies, they knew how to deal with.

"All right," he said, reloading his gun. Ada had already chambered a new round into the shotgun, while Claire checked her own gun and ruffled Sherry's hair in passing. "Let's get moving."

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

The lab was nightmarishly quiet.

Claire let go of her gun with one hand to brush the sweat off her brow, rubbing it dry on her shirt before resuming her ready grip. It wasn't all that hot in here, but after the chill of the conference room, it felt… stifling. Or maybe it was just the heavy air.

The nerves didn't help, either.

Ironically, this would have been easier if there'd been some proper ominous horror movie music playing. Claire had always had a soft spot for VR shoot-up games, even if Chris had spent half his time making fun of the weapons that corrected for a civilian's aim. They'd done more than a few haunted house survival games, and she'd never really been _scared_ during any of them.

There wasn't any background music here. Just a low hum, just barely audible – probably the ventilation system, pushing air through the facility. It set her teeth on edge whenever she actually tried to listen to it, but mostly it was just part of the air, making everything seem heavier and… weirdly, even quieter than actual silence would have been. The occasional distant rattle of something caught in the vents, or the buzz of a light flickering on and off with the stuttering power from the disrupted electrical systems, was almost a relief.

She almost _wanted_ zombies to show up. Zombies were things she could _do_ something about. She'd almost take another one of those triffids over endless empty hallways and that low hum.

Almost. For the most part, she was grateful that the stairs and the hallway they'd open onto had been clear. Even if the animal instincts programmed into the base of her brain were desperate to have _something_ to either hit or run away from.

They rounded a turn in the corridor, and Ada pointed to a set of massive security doors, similar to the ones they'd encountered. "Through there."

Leon's steady scan of their surroundings didn't stop as they approached, even though the corridor itself was seemingly empty – no other doors, and just the steady glow of the emergency lights. But when they reached the end of the hallway, he did pause, tilting his head to the side as he studied the sign over the door. "Huh. Biomedicine? I suppose that makes sense…"

Part of Claire wanted to demand what, where, and how _any_ of this made sense… but when she sat on that reflex and thought about it, he did have a point. Whatever happened to turn people into zombies… the odds of that being _accidental_ were beyond ridiculous. Particularly with the other things they'd seen.

 _"Never anger your doctor. They know how you're put together, they know how to take you apart." Somehow, I don't think this is quite what you meant, Dad._

Shaking his head, Leon reached for the handle of the vault-like door-

"Wait!"

-and paused just before actually touching it, glancing over his shoulder.

Sherry had moved a step or two in front of Claire, brow furrowed in concentration. "There's something moving on the other side," she said, startlingly confident.

Claire knew that her surprise _had_ to be showing on her face. To Claire's own psychokinetic sense, the door was a dark mass of dead space, like a black hole in her senses. Not really surprising; anything this high-security almost certainly included EMP dampening.

 _She can feel movement? Through_ that _?_

Leon surely knew about EMP shielding – but he simply nodded, accepting Sherry's word for it. Frowning, he took a moment to study the door more carefully. "Nearby?"

"I think so," Sherry said after a moment, nodding. "I don't think I could feel it if it weren't."

Leon studied the door a moment longer, then looked at Claire. "It's not locked, but the door opens inward," he said. "And without power… this is going to be hard to open. It's heavy."

Meaning, Leon wouldn't be able to just kick it open and take aim at whatever was on the other side. He'd have to open himself up to a grab or a bite or who knew what else while he was pushing it. Claire nodded, stepping right up against the door and turning so she'd sight along the opening, gun readied and leveled. "I've got it," she said, bracing herself. And, ironically, feeling better. She'd gotten her wish for something to shoot, after all.

Ada had already turned, putting her back against the wall so that she could keep half an eye on them, but keeping the bulk of her attention on watching for anything that might come up behind them while they were busy. It was enough to make Claire kind of regret her own suspicion. Leon, meanwhile, ducked down low so that he wouldn't impede her line of fire, setting his good shoulder against the door and bracing himself before glancing up at her.

Claire nodded. "Ready," she breathed, and he turned the handle and threw his weight against it.

Groaning. Hands and faces in the dark, reaching and grabbing, pink and pale and oddly _pasty_ , and Claire didn't think about it, just fired.

The spray of fleshy matter rather than blood startled her. But she didn't stop, taking down the first, then another – then the door was open, and Leon had dropped to one knee, bringing his own gun up to support, and the third went down.

Slowly, Claire helped him push the door the rest of the way open, and looked down.

"God," she breathed, eyes slowly widening in horror.

The zombies sprawled on the inside of the door… weren't like the ones they'd fought on the streets of Raccoon City, or in the halls of the police station. Those had been… strangely degraded, but recognizable as _human_ , or former humans. These…

The flesh on the faces had gone… soft, and puffy, and strangely drooping, muscle and skin sagging as if only loosely connected to the bones. They were naked, but… there wasn't exactly much left for clothing to cover, either. Most of them didn't even retain ears or noses, the softer tissue either fallen away or reabsorbed. And the _smell_ …

Claire took an involuntary step back, one hand reflexively rising to cover her mouth and nose. She knew what rotten meat smelled like. Even intestines – she'd gone hunting a few times, because her father had always been stubborn about his children knowing how to fend for themselves, despite the fact that there hadn't been a world in the Republic that had suffered a serious famine ever since interstellar travel and communication had been established. This was worse.

These zombies weren't just rotting. They were _putrefied_.

"How long have they been down here?" she breathed, not even trying to pretend that her voice wasn't shaking a little.

"Hard to say," Leon said slowly, and Claire couldn't decide if she was horrified or impressed when the policeman crouched down next to one of the bodies to study it, although he didn't make the slightest move to touch it. "I can't say I'm an expert. There are a lot of variables to how long it takes a body to break down, and I'm not exactly a forensic doctor. It's pretty dry down here, and fairly cool; that would slow the decay down. But… whatever's causing the zombies, it seems to accelerate the tissue breakdown." Shaking his head, he straightened, studying the zombies a moment longer before glancing significantly at Claire and Ada. "But they're definitely older than the ones we saw in the city. By several days, I'd guess."

A choked sound – and then a loud _Oof!_ , as Ada snapped one arm out to intercept Sherry when the girl tried to dart past her into the hallway.

"Let me _go_!" Sherry demanded, voice high and cracking and desperate. "My dad's in there!"

"Hurrying won't help," Ada said, an edge of ice in the level words. "At this point, either he's found somewhere safe to hide, or there's nothing we can do for him either way."

Sherry's eyes were shimmering in the dim light "But…!"

"If it's any comfort… I don't think he's one of these guys," Leon said.

But something in his voice was too hard for _comfort_ , and Claire involuntarily drew in a sharp breath, nearly gagging at the odor. And even more at the implications. "You think… this is why Irons was smuggling people down here."

"Test subjects," Ada agreed grimly. "Whatever's causing this… it's too complex to have been an accident. It was _developed_." She eyed Sherry for a moment. "Remember. We need to stay together," she said, and lowered her arm.

Sherry didn't seem inclined to go charging in again, at least. "But… Dad might be okay, right?" she asked in a small voice, blue eyes moving across each of their faces.

"We can hope," Leon said neutrally, although his expression wasn't exactly hopeful. More grim and set, as if reminding himself that none of them could afford to do anything _stupid_.

 _Like punching Dr. Birkin in the face, if we do find him._

Because… if there were test subjects in the area where the man had his lab, it was a pretty safe bet that he was in on the research. Or at least knew all about it, even if he wasn't conducting it himself.

Which was a _good_ thing, Claire reminded herself. Sherry's mother had access to a vaccine. If Dr. Birkin was involved, the odds of the vaccine working were even better. And there might be more.

The fact that Sherry wasn't picking up on the undercurrents in the adults' faces said more about her anxiety level than the way she was nervously shifting her weight from foot to foot, or the twitching of her tentacles. No matter what he'd done, Dr. Birkin was still her father.

Claire drew in a deep breath, grateful that her sense of smell had gone numb to the worst of the reek, and made herself hold it for several long moments as she reminded herself that they _didn't know_ what had happened down here. Not really. Thus far, everything was speculation. For all she knew, the zombies were the result of some other Confederation nastiness, or from the groups that the Satrapy _claimed_ were fringe elements – Ada might think the Confederacy was the source of most of the nastiness, but Claire's father had seen with his own eyes what had happened on Kefe 3, when those _fringe elements_ had decided to take the spaceport. It was entirely possible that Dr. Birkin had been trying to find a cure.

 _And if you believe that, I hear you can fly through black holes these days, too…_

Unnecessarily suspicious, maybe. But at this point, Claire wasn't inclined to give _anyone_ in Umbrella the benefit of the doubt.

At which point, a cold feeling swept over her.

 _If these things really were test subjects… how are they wandering around loose?_

Slowly, she forced her gaze up from the fallen zombies – the things weren't even _twitching_ the way the zombies in the city had, which wasn't surprising given how decayed they were, and it made her wonder uneasily how they'd even been still _moving_ before – and for the first time, really _looked_ at the area they'd found.

Unlike the hallway upstairs, the doors spaced evenly on either side of this one opened into laboratories. Or at least, that was Claire's best guess, based on the glimpses she got of small entry spaces with lockers and emergency showers, clearly meant for a quick change in case of an accident, and a minimization of any cross-contamination in the case that someone might need to move to a different laboratory in the area.

She was more disturbed by the fact that she _could_ look into those areas. The doors were heavy, designed to swing closed as soon as someone let go – additional protection against contamination, making certain that there was no way a door could be left open by accident. But several of the doors were damaged, as though someone had gone through them by main force, leaving hinges broken and unable to swing.

 _That must be why the zombies were wandering the corridor. They got out, because someone else broke_ in _._

She didn't need Ada to tell her which lab belonged to Birkin. All she had to do was follow the trail of broken doors to its end, where a door that apparently had been locked had been forced open – using some kind of a shaped charge, going by the blast marks.

Sherry made a soft keening sound, one hand reaching up reflexively as if looking for support. Freeing her left hand from her gun, Claire reached down in response, and hid a wince as Sherry immediately grabbed on with a white-knuckled grip, curved claws like a kitten's slipping out of her fingertips to prick at the leather of Claire's gloves. Sherry didn't seem to notice; all of her attention was on Leon as the man carefully made his way to the door, listening intently before he looked inside, and then finally slipping through.

A moment later, he reappeared, grimacing slightly as he waved the rest of them in, and Claire found herself jerked forward as Sherry drew in one deep, trembling breath – and then darted into the room.

 _This is a warzone_.

For a moment, that was all Claire could think – all she could even _see_ , as the chaos and destruction around her seemed to merge together, and all she could really make out was one mass, unified _mess_. It took a moment or two before her mind could begin parsing it out, and she could make out the _pieces_ of it all.

A desk chair lying overturned a short distance from a desk, as if whoever was sitting there had stood up so fast that even the little spinny wheels on the legs hadn't been able to compensate, despite the smooth floor that should have sent the chair zooming away like oil on a hotplate. The desk itself had probably been organized chaos to begin with, but now there was no _organization_ to it, data pads and documents scattered across its surface and fallen to the floor. The terminal interface set into the back was now just a web of cracks, radiating out from a series of holes in its surface.

Claire could feel her stomach sink as her eye fixed on those holes. _Bullet_ holes.

Bullets that hadn't just shattered the terminal screen, but continued on, leaving scars and pock marks across the walls, a shattered distillation array still dripping an unknown liquid onto the stone countertop in the back, a series of broken vials, a sample case lying open and unused, fallen from its shelf…

And blood smeared against the front of a small freezer door, and pooled on the floor underneath it.

Blood that had dried to near-black, flaking slightly in the dry air. But not enough to disguise the treadmarks left by a heavy boot that must have stepped in the spreading puddle while it was still fresh – treadmarks that led back, almost reaching the door before they faded enough that Claire's untrained eye could no longer make them out in the dim light.

With a _thump_ , Sherry abruptly dropped to the floor, as if suddenly her legs couldn't support her. She sat limply, even her hair and tentacles lax as she stared blank-eyed at that bloody smear.

"No," she whispered. "No, no, no… Mom said he was okay. She said he just had a few things to take care of, that he would be done soon and then he'd come home… She _said_ , she said everything was going to be _fine_ …"

Tears spilled down the girl's cheeks, leaving bright tracks under the dust and dirt and soot from the fire earlier, and Claire winced, almost wishing for another tantrum like the one in Irons's hidden lab, rather than this _lost_ expression…

"Hey." Leon crouched down next to the girl, resting one hand on her shoulder and rubbing gently. "It's okay to be upset, you know."

Sherry blinked up at him, chin trembling ever so slightly. " _But_ …" she protested, voice thick.

"My parents died when I was a little younger than you," he said. "It hurt. I was mad at them, for a long time. They were supposed to be there, right? Even if your folks _are_ okay – heck, _especially_ if they're okay – you've got _every_ right to be upset right now. So don't try to hold it back." A flicker of a smile. "So go ahead and cry, or scream, or yell. And don't worry. I'm not going to tell anyone if you even cuss a little bit. This? _Definitely_ counts as a time when that's okay."

That actually got a watery giggle, as Sherry reached up and tried to rub the tears off her cheeks with the heels of her hands. For a moment, she seemed to visibly calm and relax – and then she blinked, looking surprised. "Why are you… Aren't they, you know… creepy?"

Claire blinked. At some point, Leon's hand, gently circling on Sherry's back, had reached the tentacles. But rather than stopping… he was very deliberately petting them, using short and gentle circles where they attached to Sherry's back and working his way out along one of the upper ones, not even flinching when the tip unfurled to show a layer of vicious-looking barbs.

Leon raised an eyebrow at her. "Remember what I said about monsters?"

"That I'm only one if I try to eat people?"

"Yep." For just a second, Leon's gaze flickered up at Claire, and he winked. "So these? They're not creepy. They're _you_."

Claire crouched down next to Sherry. "He's right, you know. They let you do things, and that's helped all of us. You got that Licker that jumped me, remember?" Bracing herself, she deliberately reached out and echoed Leon's petting on the other upper tentacle, noting the way Sherry started to relax almost involuntarily. Whatever they were doing, apparently it was helping.

Leon grinned. "Besides. They're _fuzzy_. You're like a little kitty-cat with four tails."

 _Fuzzy_ wouldn't be the word Claire would have picked – although the pout of utterly offended dignity Sherry shot at the cop was _all_ cat. The fur itself was too sleek – more like the sort of thing Claire had seen on river-mammals like the Rockfort 3 otters than the fluff of a terrestrial feline. Although the barbed tip wasn't like _any_ mammal Claire had ever seen.

There were scraps of flesh still caught in the barbs from when Sherry had fought the Licker. That couldn't be comfortable – or healthy. Glad that the girl wasn't looking at her face, Claire braced herself and picked a few of the pieces out, flicking them well out of the way, just in case.

Finally, Sherry drew in a deep breath and squared her shoulders, chin rising as the tentacle slipped out of Claire's hand. "What…" She swallowed. "What do you think happened?"

Ada had stood back, keeping watch while they calmed the girl – although the slight smile on her face showed that she didn't begrudge the delay. Now, however, the smile vanished under that same cool, calculating look that seemed to be the woman's default. "From the look of things… I would guess that whoever broke in through the security hub upstairs came here. They were looking for something, and searched the labs as they went. Then they arrived here, and… if I were to guess, they found what they were looking for." Her brow furrowed slightly. "The question is, _what_ …"

" _You!_ "

Claire whirled, one knee staying planted on the floor as a pivot point as the other came up, planting her foot for height, stability and mobility. Behind her, she heard Leon quickly push Sherry back so that the transformed girl was hidden behind the two of them, putting his own bulk between her and the door.

The woman who stepped through would have been lovely, with clear even features and fine blonde hair in a bob cut with long bangs that swept down to frame her face. If not for the wild look in the blue eyes that darted madly back and forth, and the way her lips had pulled back from her teeth in a feral snarl that twisted her features into an inhuman mask.

"Oh, I see," the woman hissed, her gun shifting from Ada to Claire and back again, as though she couldn't decide which of them to shoot first. "You didn't get what you'd wanted the first time, so you thought you'd just sneak back in and _take_ it, did you? Well, you can't! I won't hand the virus over! Not to anyone!"

 _Virus?_

Letting her shotgun hang loose at the end of its strap, Ada raised her hands and took a slight step forward, and the wavering muzzle of the woman's gun immediately locked onto her as though pulled by a magnet. "Please, calm down," Ada said, her voice smooth and level, as though she was threatened by armed crazy people every day. "Whatever happened down here, we had nothing to do with it."

"Oh, I'm sure you'd like me to believe that, little _thief_ ," the woman sneered. "You Confederacy rats, you're all the same, thinking you can steal our work…!"

Swallowing hard, Claire tried to block the raving out and _aim_. Ada had drawn the woman's attention, she seemed to have forgotten that Claire existed – which meant it was on Claire to try to take this woman down-

A small voice broke through all the noise with the force of a gunshot.

"Mom?"


	6. Things Can Always Get Worse

CHAPTER SIX

Things Can Always Get Worse

* * *

Startled, Claire glanced over her shoulder before she could think better of taking her eyes off the woman. "Sherry? That's your…?"

The girl swallowed hard and nodded, one hand fisted on Leon's shirt nervously even as she gingerly stepped past the man. "Mom?" she repeated, eyes wide. "You're… you're okay?"

The woman blinked, the wild look in her eyes fading. "Sherry?" Her arms lowered as though she'd forgotten about the gun as she frowned slightly at the girl. "What are you doing down here?"

"We met her when we were going through the police station, trying to gather any survivors together," Leon said, rising to his feet with deliberately slow, clearly telegraphed motions. "I'm glad we found you, ma'am. She's been worried."

The woman's brow furrowed. "But why…" Suddenly, she blinked, eyes widening for just a moment before she rocked back ever so slightly with a faint huff of frustrated understanding. "Of _course_. Lack of adrenaline extends the chrysalid stage, but with less physical mass to convert… of course she'd wake up early."

The scariest part was, now that Claire was looking, she could actually _see_ the resemblance. Not just the blonde hair and blue eyes – Sherry's hair was a lot brighter, for one thing, although that might just have been because Sherry was still a kid. It was more… movement. The way her lips pursed slightly and her eyes narrowed as she worked through a problem. The hint of a tilt to her head as she studied the girl.

Which was _not comforting_ , given what she'd just said. "You know what happened to Sherry?" Claire demanded, probably a little more sharply than was wise. Although she did lower her gun a bit, not wanting to trigger the raving madwoman who'd first come through the door again. She _really_ didn't want to shoot Sherry's mom right in front of her.

But all she got in response was a sharp, disdainful glance. "Of _course_ I know what happened. Did you think I would give a vaccine to my daughter without knowing _exactly_ what it does? And now… look at you, Sherry," she added, tone suddenly softening into something oddly wistful as she studied her daughter. "A perfect young _shinigami_."

" _Shinigami_?" Ada echoed, blinking. Claire wondered if she recognized the term – something about the cadence sounded similar to the archaic Japanese that popped up in ninja and samurai-themed games.

The woman's eyes narrowed suspiciously, a flicker of that earlier paranoia returning as she glared at each of them. "Who are _you_?" she asked in return, her voice equally sharp.

"She's Claire; that's Ada over there," Leon said. And he was doing that thing again, conveying through tone and stance and just _presence_ that _we don't need to be fighting each other right now, calm down, let's figure this out_. "I'm Leon Kennedy, with the RPD." He smiled crookedly. "Sort of. First day."

The little wry joke seemed to work, and some of that tightly-wound tension seemed to ease a bit. "Annette Birkin," she said. "And you still haven't answered my question. What are you doing down here?"

Great. No way was Annette going to believe them if they told her they'd come down here looking for answers…

"Leon's been bitten!"

Sherry grabbed onto the man's leg, staring beseechingly at her mother.

"He's been bitten, and he's going to get sick – we have to help him!"

Claire winced. She should have known Sherry would pick up on that. The girl was young, not stupid, and she was about ten times more observant than Claire had ever been at that age.

Annette huffed and actually _rolled her eyes_ in response. "If he's been bitten, then shoot him," she said with blunt dismissiveness. "The T-virus is highly virulent. It begins altering the host's body almost immediately, even if the emergence of symptoms is somewhat variable…"

Ada cleared her throat very deliberately. "It's been over three hours," she said mildly.

Claire had to blink, even with the stinging in her eyes that _wasn't_ frustrated tears, dammit. Had it really been that long? Or maybe… had it _only_ been that long? Her sense of time was all screwed up at this point.

And… Annette was staring at the woman. A stare that then transferred over to Leon without the disbelief in it shifting at all. "That's not possible."

Leon's one-shouldered shrug was a hair too casual. "Well… I've always had a pretty tough immune system," he offered.

"That makes no difference," Annette objected. "This is one of the most virulent diseases I've ever encountered. There _is_ no natural immunity." Scowling, she stalked forward, not even looking at them as she led the way into the next room of the lab. "I need to see the site of infection."

The first room they passed through was clearly meant as a staging area, with a disinfection airlock between the main office and this room, and row upon row of neatly stacked and organized shelves, labeled to explain their contents. Claire didn't get a chance to look at them in detail; Annette opened one of the cabinets and took something out, then continued on into the next room, not even looking to see if they were following.

Claire stopped frozen in the doorway to the next room, however. It was completely empty, save for a chair in the center reminiscent of the sort found in a physician's examination room.

A chair with _restraining straps_.

 _She's still Sherry's mother_ , Claire reminded herself, over the ringing in her ears and the ache of knuckles going white as they clenched the handle of her gun. Stepping aside so that Ada could follow her through, she very deliberately flicked the safety back on. She hated the crawling sense of vulnerability that gave her, knowing she was that much more vulnerable to any unpleasant surprises… but she didn't quite trust herself with an unlocked weapon right now. Especially not when her eye landed on several patches of white in the walls and ceiling that didn't match the featureless paint – lenses for hidden cameras, without a doubt.

Leon saw them, too. For just a second, he hesitated, and glanced over his shoulder at Claire and then Ada.

 _Watch my back?_

Right. And that was the other reason Claire couldn't just shoot the woman. Whatever Annette had done, it wasn't just that she was Claire's mother. They _needed_ her help. So she was going to sit on the part of her that was screaming this whole situation was just _wrong, wrong,_ wrong! – and she was also going to watch like a hawk. Just in case.

Leon carefully shrugged out of his equipment harness, setting it close at hand by the chair, and then loosened his jacket and pulled it free of his shoulder as he sat gingerly on the edge of the chair.

"Please lean…" Annette started, and then blinked, suddenly thrown out of what was clearly a well-practiced routine. "Sherry?"

The girl didn't answer, just huddled closer against Leon's side, tucked in close under his good arm, staring down at the floor without meeting her mother's gaze.

Seeming to look down at the floor, rather. But under the pale blonde lashes, her eyes were watching the woman intently – and from the slight twitching of tentacles and hair, she was watching Annette electromagnetically, as well. And her position neatly disguised the fact that Leon still had his gun in his right hand.

 _She doesn't trust Annette, either._

The _sadness_ of that thought almost surprised Claire. But… it was one thing for a little girl to know that her parents might have been involved in bad things. The fact that Sherry considered Annette capable of _hurting_ one of Sherry's friends…

On the other hand, her presence seemed to be helping. After blinking at her daughter for a moment, Annette shook her head slightly and turned back to Leon. "Sorry," she said, some of the dispassionate distance easing out of her voice. "I need to take a look at the wound." Reaching forward, she carefully detached the front of the bandage and peeled it back.

Claire had to fight a wince. There was something viscerally wrenching about seeing skin and muscle _torn_ that way. But… that aside, it didn't look too bad. The bite seemed clean, and maybe she wasn't an expert but it didn't look inflamed enough to be infected.

And maybe if she kept telling herself that, she'd be able to shove away the image of zombies she'd seen with smaller bites.

Annette, on the other hand, was frowning as she prodded at the flesh around the bite with her fingertips. "Strange," she murmured, clearly talking to herself more than them. "No corruption at all… you said this was three hours old?"

"At least," Leon said, a little stiffly, obviously fighting the urge to lean away. "I was bitten around ten o'clock – ow!"

 _All_ of them tensed at that – but Annette didn't even seem to notice, scowling down at the analyzer in her hand.

"This makes no _sense_ ," she muttered. "Madsen's Hollow is the most virulent virus known. It has a one hundred percent infection rate. The T-virus shares that infection rate, we tested that aspect thoroughly. A bite that size… you should have been exposed. By now, the virus should have fully infiltrated your tissue. But it _hasn't_. It was there, you have the antibody markers, but the virus itself is gone. The only known way to achieve immunity is… but you don't have any of the shinigami modifications, either…"

"Shinigami?" Sherry asked quietly, finally looking up at her mother. "You said… I was that."

"I'm more concerned about this _Madsen's Hollow_ ," Ada said pointedly.

"Madsen's Hollow is a viral pathogen that was discovered after an outbreak on one of the frontier planets," Annette replied. "For most, when exposed it resulted in a hemorrhagic fever, fatal within an hour or two of exposure. However, a small number of the victims displayed a striking mutagenic reaction, accompanied by marked behavioral shifts, specific tissue lysis and the development of neurotoxicity coupled with a secondary neural network with intriguing electrosensory and psychokinetic capabilities…"

"Wait," Claire blurted, knowing she'd just gone pale. "Are you telling me that this zombie virus is _natural_?"

Because okay, she'd only understood about half of that. But she knew enough about _hemorrhaging_ to know that _hemorrhagic_ couldn't be anything good, and _mutagenic_ … well, if it was what it sounded like…

"Zombie virus?" For a moment, Annette looked like she was going to argue, but at length she let it go with a huff. "Well. I suppose that's an apt layman's description of the symptoms. And currently, we believe Madsen's Hollow to be a bioweapon that either slipped its creator's control or was released for testing in the wrong place. You see, there was a military base nearby…"

By the time Annette reached the end of the story, Claire's head was spinning – an outbreak in the middle of a top-security, enclosed base, an experimental vaccine unleashed on everyone, weird transformative side effects, a chaotic evacuation, permanent quarantine on everyone exposed…

"And then something went wrong," Ada said dryly.

Annette huffed. "The chief scientist, Kisuke Urahara, vanished. Along with Doctors Isshin and Masaki Shiba. They were the ones who developed the vaccine in the first place… and when they disappeared from the Project, they took all of the information on the original vaccine with them."

Wait. Had Ada _blinked_ at those names…?

"What?" Leon's hands froze in the middle of tightening his harness back on – while Annette had been distracted, he'd slipped off the chair, resettled his jacket, and grabbed the harness, all the while moving unobtrusively out of Annette's direct reach. "Why?"

Annette made a brief, dismissive gesture with her hand. "Urahara was always infamous for refusing to share his research," she said, lip curling slightly. "Luckily, the project was able to recover some of the vaccine, but their data is incomplete. The project requested that William and I analyze and improve it."

Claire's throat went suddenly dry as her mind put the pieces together, and came to an ugly, ugly thought. "Wait," she said, a little shakily. "Do you mean that there are _Hollows_ on the loose in the city?" Because if so… God. They'd been so, so lucky, and hadn't even known it…

It said something, that Annette's impatient huff and another dismissive gesture was actually comforting. "Of course not," the woman said briskly. "Due to the nature of the virus and the dangers of transport, the Project has a strict containment policy. No viral samples are allowed to leave." Her lips pursed slightly in a small moue of dissatisfaction. "And unfortunately, we were ultimately unable to recreate the original virus from the vaccine samples."

For a moment, Claire was too _startled_ to be horrified, her glance flicking to the others only to find equally disbelieving eyes looking back. _Yep. She really did say that._

Ada cleared her throat. "Do forgive a laywoman her ignorance," she said, the sarcasm only audible in the slightest of dry edges to the words, "but… why would you _want_ to recreate something that deadly?"

"To understand it," Annette replied, sounding surprised that they even needed to ask. "Madsen's Hollow is a virus with effects beyond anything humanity has ever encountered, throughout all our history of space travel – and not just the Republic, but _all_ humanity. If we can understand it, this has the potential of advancing our biological, viral, and medical fields by more than a hundred years! Think of the _potential_!"

"Potential for man-eating monsters?" Claire countered before she could think better of it. "That are nearly unkillable because they heal from just about anything?"

Annette scowled at her. " _Yes_. Think about what you just said! The Hollows have _uncanny_ healing abilities. The Urahara vaccine proved that the facility for healing is not irrevocably tied to the more damaging aspects of the virus." She made a vague gesture with the hand holding the analyzer, not even seeming aware that it was there anymore. "Despite the name, the Panimmunity treatment doesn't answer everything. We've always been on the edge, chasing one half-step behind the latest disease that new planets or terrorists with a grudge have to throw at us. If we can find out how Hollow healing _works_ , and incorporate it… It wouldn't be just diseases, either! Parasites, physical trauma… we could turn Panimmunity into a true _panacea_!" The bubbling, bright-eyed excitement faded – or maybe _vanished_ was a better word, and if there weren't so many other things so very wrong about this situation Claire would have worried about that, because that sort of lightning-flash change in emotions said very, very bad things about Annette's mental state. "Of course, to do that, it was necessary to understand how the virus worked, both as a whole, as individual strains, and with separate strains in combination."

 _Zombies. Lickers_. The description of how Madsen's Hollow worked might have been hard to follow, but… a transformative, mind-altering virus. _That's why the zombies seem to start decaying the minute they zombify, isn't it? To transform something, you have to break it down first. That version just stopped at the breaking-down stage…_

"We were making progress," Annette continued. "Unfortunately… I don't know how, but word of the project must have gotten out. There was a break-in, and a number of our viral samples were stolen. Ultimately, the thieves were stopped, but…" She shrugged. "When I realized that contaminants had been released into the city, I retrieved the samples we had reconstructed of the original shinigami vaccine, and pulled Sherry out of school."

"Did you warn anyone about the breach in containment?" Leon asked, voice measured in a way that told Claire he was choosing his words carefully. Probably because he was afraid he'd do something impulsive if he let his temper slip. "Or supply the city's emergency responders with the vaccine?"

Annette blinked, her face blank. "Of course not. I couldn't. I was already violating contract as it was by using the vaccine to inoculate myself and Sherry. The existence of the Madsen's Hollow virus, and the vaccine and its properties, are all closely guarded military secrets, you realize."

Leon pursed his lips, but didn't answer. Claire didn't _trust_ herself to try answering. Military secrets, sure. But she'd grown up with a family history full of military officers and agents; it was part and parcel of the Redfield Quincy bloodline.

 _Sure, the military likes having secret toys, and its job is killing people and breaking things… but the_ purpose _of a military is to protect civilians! No one would have blamed you for breaking contract if it meant saving the city!_

God. No wonder Sherri didn't trust her mother, not all the way. If a contract meant more than saving lives…

 _And somehow, I don't think that contract had anything in it on making_ new _viruses._

Ada tilted her head to the side. "You took the vaccine as well?" she asked, the mild curiosity in her tone breaking the tension in the room. Which probably was the point, and Claire took the moment of distraction to close her eyes just long enough to draw in a deep breath and hold it. She had a temper, and it had been a very bad and very _long_ evening as it was. She couldn't afford to let this get at her. At least, not for now. "Why don't you…?"

"Show the physical changes?" Annette shrugged slightly, the face of the distant professional shifting to a small, rueful smile that might very well be the most _human_ expression Claire had seen yet from the woman. "Only about twenty percent of those who take the vaccine undergo the transformation to become a true shinigami. It seems my major histocompatibility complex isn't fully compatible." She looked affectionately at her daughter. "Sherry takes after William, apparently."

"William's your husband?" Leon hesitated, eyes flicking for just a moment down to Sherry, who'd stayed close to his side – either for comfort, or to protect him from her mother, Claire honestly wasn't sure. Knowing Sherry, probably both. Leon's free hand settled lightly on the girl's shoulder as he squared his shoulders and looked back at Annette. "If I may ask… where is he?"

For just a heartbeat, something fierce and ugly flashed in Annette's eyes, an echo of the raving, wild-eyed woman they'd initially met. "I'd gone down to storage for a moment when the break-in happened. He was in the lab. He… was hurt."

The sabotaged security center. Doors that had been forced open. Terminal and walls riddled by gunfire. And blood smeared across the floor and wall. Claire winced. She didn't need to ask how bad it had been. That, and Annette's behavior, was enough to tell her it had been very bad.

"But William was able to hide our most successful isolate – the G-virus," Annette pressed on. "And…"

"He used it on himself," Ada guessed, eyes shadowed.

"It worked!" Annette insisted fiercely. "It did – they shot him, and G healed the wounds! Granted, there were some minor complications…"

Sherry made a soft sound of distress, leaning into Leon's hand on her shoulder as though she didn't quite trust herself to stay standing without it. Her eyes were wide, the blue seeming to flicker silver for a moment. "It's Dad, isn't it," she whispered. "He's the monster. _Dad_ is the monster."

"He's not a monster!" Annette flared, in impatience or anger or maybe both. "It's true that there were some unfortunate side effects, but all it will take is some simple tweaking, he'll be _fine_."

Claire let out a slow, silent breath. Ouch. For Sherry's sake… she hoped that Annette hadn't actually _seen_ William since the transformation began to take effect. Refusing to believe the worst was one thing. But Claire had _seen_ the face of the monster who'd started out as a man, back when he'd tried to kill her just because she'd been _there_. If Annette was really in denial about that…

 _Then again, if she saw that happen to her husband, and right after she thought he might make it after being shot?_

No wonder Annette seemed just _broken_.

Leon glanced at Ada. "I guess that explains what we saw in the sewers," he said quietly.

Ada nodded, and then narrowed her eyes slightly as she looked back at Annette. "Forgive me for digressing, but time is pressing. In your opinion, is Leon safe to leave this place without risking taking this virus out with him?"

Annette looked frustrated. "Yes. The virus can live for a very long time in infected tissue, but for some reason it failed to take hold, and your immune system has already isolated and destroyed nearly all of the original viral cells. I just don't understand _how_ it managed that." There was an unsettling glint of fascination in her eyes. "If I could just run a few tests…"

Ada shook her head. "There's not enough time for that right now. We need to focus on making certain your daughter gets out safely." As she spoke, Sherry reached up and latched onto Leon's hand, looking wide-eyed and young and very scared – and while all of those were definitely true, she was distinctly playing them up. Claire held her breath, hoping. Sherry's presence had managed to snap Annette out of the paranoid fit when she'd come in, and that weird scientific fugue state earlier…

It seemed to work. Annette blinked once, looking nonplussed as her mind abruptly shifted gears, and that _hungry_ look vanished. "Oh. Of course," she murmured. "Escape. The emergency shuttles are below – I have the access codes…"

"Just a moment." Leon was frowning slightly, thinking. "Is there a way to access the security recordings?"

Claire couldn't help staring at him for a moment. "Why?" she asked, more sharply than she'd intended. They'd confirmed he was clear and were getting _out_ – why delay now?

Leon met her eyes grimly. "Because this mess is much bigger than we thought. It's not just Umbrella Corp, or even Umbrella and a secret military project. And if we don't have hard evidence to back us up, it's going to get messier." He shifted his gaze to Ada, with a brief glance at Annette. "The people we found in the sewers were probably the hit team that broke in down here. We saw the sample case. What we _don't_ know is how many of them there were in the first place. It's possible some of them got away. There wouldn't have been zombies all over the city to deal with, not then. Even if that _were_ all of them, we have no proof that they didn't transmit any data on their way out. I would have, if I'd been arranging a raid like that."

"And even if they didn't… the fact that there was a raid in the first place means that word must have gotten out. Not just about the hidden lab, either – this was a targeted strike on the Birkins' research project." Ada grimaced slightly. "You're right. Now that the secret is out… this just got very big. Too big for us to handle alone."

"You don't think the people in charge are going to listen?" Sherry asked tentatively.

Claire thought about that, and grimaced. "Big top-secret military project? No way."

The corner of Leon's mouth quirked slightly. "There's a reason we still use that pre-space saying about closing the barn doors after all the horses have left. If a secret gets out, reflex says to try to brazen it out – keep doing more of what you've _been_ doing all along. We're going to need hard evidence if we're going to convince them that it won't work." He looked at Annette again. "If we can get video of the outbreak, or better yet, of the original attack…"

The mention of the attack seemed to tip the scales. Annette's expression, which had gone indifferent again, flickered with a hint of that earlier focused fury. "There will be video," she confirmed. "The cameras here are always recording, even if the system itself goes down. But you can only access them through the main security center in the central shaft."

"The computers are locked in standby mode," Ada noted. "To restart them, we would need access to an administrator's code."

Annette shrugged. "I don't have those," she said. "But I imagine you can find one of the access keys in the offices upstairs."

Claire couldn't help the wince. They'd had a hard time getting this far. Now they had to go _back_?

To her surprise, however, Leon glanced at her and shook his head. "Claire, I have a favor to ask. Can you take Sherry and Annette and get to the shuttle level?"

Claire stared at him for a moment. "Clearly, you haven't watched enough horror movies," she said bluntly. "Tip: cardinal rule is _never split up_!"

Yes, they'd done it before, but that was because Leon expected to become a zombie at any minute! Now they knew he was going to be _fine_ , so why…

Leon held up a hand. "You're right, I haven't," he said dryly. "They tend to be rough on cops." Sobering, he explained, "Ada _has_ to be with me; she's the one who knows computers. But we also need to think in terms of maximizing our chances of escaping. There's no reason to risk more people than we absolutely have to on a side trip… and evidence or not, _someone_ has to get out of here and warn people." He smiled slightly. "Besides. You have a brother to find and yell at, remember?"

 _Chris_. Claire stopped herself just short of biting her lip. "But…" she said, more for the sake of arguing than because she had an actual argument to make.

Leon glanced down at Sherry, who was looking at him wide-eyed. "Look at it this way," he suggested. "If we want to get out of here as fast as possible? Prepping a shuttle takes time. You can clear the path for us so we can follow quickly, and have the shuttle ready so that once we catch up, we can get _out_ of here."

Blast. That made sense.

Claire sighed, and then set her shoulders as Sherry reluctantly stepped away from Leon to join her again. "Annette. Do you know the fastest way to get to the shuttles?"

"Of course," Annette said, the distracted professional back. "The facility runs emergency drills on a regular basis."

Claire nodded, then looked at the other two. "In that case… I guess we'll see you there."

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

The last of the zombies in the hall staggered, but didn't drop. A second sharp bark of gunfire finally dropped it.

Ada clicked her tongue. "My aim's off."

"Makes sense," Leon said, closing the door behind them to ensure that any wandering zombies didn't stray into the areas they'd already cleared. "You've switched from a small self-defense gun, to a shotgun, to a military-grade handgun. It'll take getting used to."

Ada huffed softly. "I'd prefer if that weren't necessary."

But it would be. The plan had been that she and Leon would backtrack along the original path, searching the rooms that were already open for the access card they needed, and only begin opening new rooms if they had to.

That had lasted right up to the moment that they reached the vine room. They'd stepped through the door, only to stop cold at what they saw.

Several of the long cords making up the outer surface of the massive vine had swollen, color shifting to a bright, venomous green. Each one leading to a spherical mass that was unmistakably a bud.

"Great," Leon had breathed. "I guess that answers the question of where the triffid came from."

"I'm more worried about how many more of them are below," Ada admitted. And, though she hadn't said it aloud, what had triggered the thing to sprout more of them _now_.

"Take the detour you mentioned earlier?" he suggested.

Ada had glanced at the vine one last time, and hid her shiver under a shrug. "Probably a good idea."

And it was. Carnivorous shrubbery aside… Leon might not be infected, but he still had an injured shoulder that he'd been putting a lot of stress on. She hadn't missed the fresh blood on the bandage while Ada was inspecting the wound; he'd torn the bite open, probably during the previous climb. And on a more general note, they were going to be in a hurry once they finished here, trying to catch up to the others before anything else went wrong. Better to clear a smooth, easy path than risk trying to make that scramble twice.

Both of them waited, listening intently for the creaking groans or distinctive _slide-thmp_ that would indicate more zombies approaching. But the hallway was quiet, save for the low buzz of erratically powered lights.

"Clear the rooms?" Ada suggested, once they'd both relaxed slightly. As she spoke, she carefully checked the handgun and reloaded it. Given that Claire and the others were heading deeper into the labs, while Ada and Leon were supposed to be mostly backtracking through the already cleared areas of the facility, they'd had to adjust their arms slightly. As it turned out, Annette was running very low on ammunition for her handgun – which surprised Ada not in the least, given that she was quite sure Annette was the blonde woman who'd been shooting at her, down in the sewer.

Luckily, Annette didn't seem to have recognized her in return. A state of affairs Ada was quite happy to leave be. Particularly given that the woman's wild accusations hadn't been _entirely_ incorrect, though they had been misguided.

Given that situation, they'd decided that Annette would take the shotgun, while Ada would take Annette's handgun. That gave the shuttle team the most brute stopping power, and meant that Ada had a few more options, since she and Leon could share ammunition.

The fact that the shotgun was a bit tricky to aim had, perhaps, been a consideration. Just in case things with Annette got… messy.

Somewhat to her surprise, Ada hoped they wouldn't, although not for Annette's sake. Claire and Sherry had grown on her, over the last hour or two. The redhead was all fire and determination, but she was still innocent, in a way. And Sherry… the poor child had had _enough_ for one day.

Although, after hearing what the shinigami at the project had been capable of… Well. Ada was privately giving Sherry the best odds out of any of them for making it out of this place.

"Good thought," Leon agreed, crouching next to one of the fallen zombies. Strange, that the tiny residual twitches were almost a comfort – at least after seeing the state of the zombies wandering the lower level. "Once we've got the access key, we'll be able to go a lot faster. And I'd rather avoid backtracking as much as possible."

Ada tilted her head slightly at the man began calmly patting the zombie down. "What are you doing?"

Leon flipped the remains of a white coat – this one must have been a lab tech or a scientist – to check for inner pockets. "Access cards are things that you carry on you. Odds are, we're most likely to find what we want on one of the zombies."

Ada very nearly smacked herself on the forehead. Well, now she felt foolish. After all, she'd taken advantage of that very habit more than once. Although she'd usually done so by subtly lifting what she wanted off of a mark who usually didn't realize until hours later that anything had happened, not rifling through the pockets of dead men. After all, corpses tended to draw a lot of attention. Let alone doubly-dead ones.

That thought raised another, highly unpleasant one, and she reflexively glanced up at the ceiling. "Then I hope the Lickers haven't been wandering about."

Leon paused in the middle of rising from his crouch and grimaced before he squared his shoulders and moved to the next body. "Agreed."

Ada stayed standing, keeping watch over the corridor. It _looked_ empty…

 _But the Hollows are supposed to be capable of camouflage. We have no idea if any of the experimental results managed to recreate that trick._

Lovely. One more reason to be paranoid.

And… Leon had just pulled something from one of the fallen zombie's pockets. "What did you find?"

He held up a small, rectangular tab. "Looks like an employee ID card." With a flick of his fingers, he tossed it to her.

Ada caught it easily, turning it over in her fingers as Leon moved to check the last of the bodies. She very deliberately did _not_ look at the image or the name; she neither needed nor _wanted_ to know what unlucky soul hadn't managed to survive. Far more interesting, however, was the small chip embedded in the back, and the way the edges of the tag were slightly worn around it, the face scuffed, as if it were regularly inserted and withdrawn from something.

"Combination ID and access card," she judged as Leon rose from the bodies, pocketing what looked like another card of the same type. "I doubt it has sufficient clearance to unlock the computers…"

"But it may help us in getting down to the shuttles later," Leon pointed out. "Annette said they had emergency drills for evacuating to the shuttles; that should mean that everyone who has access to be here should be able to access the way down, at least in an emergency." He grimaced slightly. "Normally, there wouldn't be _any_ access restrictions on the emergency exits, but given what we've seen so far, I'm not going to count on that."

Ada had to agree with that. Tilting her head slightly, she indicated the doors running along the hallway. "Shall we?"

Fortunately, other than the handful of zombies that had been wandering the hallway itself, the immediate area was almost entirely clear. Only one of the open rooms was occupied – the zombie inside having either not heard the commotion, or slowed by furniture enough that it hadn't managed to get out.

Once they'd dropped that one, however, Leon paused in the office, eyes slowly scanning the terminal on the desk and the rows of shelves filled with reference books and files. "I don't think we're going to find what we're looking for in these," he said reluctantly.

Ada raised her eyebrows. "No?" she prompted. Granted, she'd had much the same impression – but she was curious what had led Leon to that conclusion.

He nodded significantly at a security camera set unobtrusively in a corner that afforded it nearly a full view of the room. "Haven't you noticed?" he asked. "The security in this place is directed almost as much inwards as outwards."

Interesting. Particularly because she _hadn't_ noticed; her concern with security systems had always been oriented towards circumventing them, rather than determining their specific purpose in the first place. And she'd been a bit… _distracted_ today.

"Ah. That's… somewhat unsettling." Particularly given that it implied that even Umbrella didn't trust the scientists down here. Or perhaps whatever those scientists might unleash.

 _And yet they still permitted the research here to happen? Interesting. I wonder what they thought they would gain, that would be worth risking their social standing_. Or perhaps they thought that the Panimmunity treatments would be enough to force the powers that be of the Republic into silence.

They might even have been correct. It was a powerful carrot, at the very least.

 _I suppose we will see_. Nodding thoughtfully, Ada looked at Leon. "In that case, where would we find security officers?"

Leon frowned, crossing his arms over his chest for a moment as his head dropped slightly and his eyes went slightly unfocused, obviously concentrating on his thoughts. After a moment, however, the expression vanished into a grimace. "I think we need to backtrack after all."

"Oh?" Ada asked curiously, although she stepped out of the way as Leon came out of the room and started down the hall towards the door that led back towards the staircase. "Why is that?"

"If you're concerned about _things_ trying to escape from the scientists' research – where would you station people?" Leon said over his shoulder, still watching their surroundings warily despite the fact that the immediate area should have been safe.

"The stairs," Ada replied, picking up her pace slightly as she realized Leon's goal. "Or the elevators. Choke points, yes?"

"Right." Leon opened the door and scanned the hallway, a particularly wary glance going to the door that led to the conference room and the vines, before stepping through.

Ada followed, but hesitated in the doorway as a thought occurred to her. "Zombies don't climb stairs."

"But people do," Leon said. "Less than an hour is still a long time. Plenty of time to evacuate survivors to the upper levels."

"And one would hope that they had not allowed test subjects to bite each other," Ada said dryly. "So they may not have known it was an infection vector. Although even if they didn't know how the virus was transmitted, one would hope they had enough sense to quarantine anyone who might have been exposed." If for no other reason than because zombies had been a classic staple of horror since… well. Before horror was even a genre, most likely.

In fact, she would not bet against the possibility that either one of the Birkins or some upper-level administrator being a fan of zombie movies, and either deliberately setting out to create them, or at least not throwing the results out when one of the test strains of the Hollow virus presented such similar effects.

Then again, she wasn't exactly known for her high regard for human common sense and intelligence, either. After all, she tended to profit on the lack thereof.

"One would hope," Leon echoed, so dryly that Ada wondered if he'd been entertaining a similar line of thought. But a moment later, he shook his head. "It wouldn't matter, though. All it would take is an overlooked scratch or bite. And in the sort of panic that would have hit? There would have been a lot of those. Panic does that to people. They stop thinking, stop listening, stop even feeling pain. Someone could have been missing an entire limb and only noticed when they keeled over from the blood loss."

Something about the calm, matter-of-fact way he said that… _You've seen that happen, haven't you?_ Ada mused.

"And that's assuming they didn't get the same water contamination that caused the main outbreak in the city," Leon continued, as she finally joined him in the hallway. His eyes were carefully scanning the walls as he spoke. "I would think that they had a better system than that, but… either way, my guess is that the security forces gathered here, based on standard drills, and then they realized that containment was already a lost cause when they got hit from behind. Or when some of their own people turned."

Ada grimaced, remembering the chaos when the driver of the interplanetary shuttle had been bitten after they'd landed. He'd been trying to keep his passengers together and organized while he figured out what was going on… and then had turned himself.

Honestly, Ada counted herself as quite lucky. If there'd been more people on that shuttle, she very well might not have escaped. All the survival skills in the world didn't help when you were boxed in by stunned and panicking people. But the group had been small enough that she'd listened to her instincts and drifted to the back of the pack. When everything went wrong, she'd been able to duck into a side alley and escape.

But it had been more than close enough for her to vividly imagine what must have gone through the facility security officers' minds, when they'd gathered a line of defense only to discover that the enemy was already behind and among them. "Not a pleasant thought," she murmured, in case Leon was waiting for a response.

"What about any of this is pleasant?" Leon replied dryly. "But… here, look."

Ada followed his pointing finger to the scars along the wall. She'd overlooked them when they'd come through before, between the dim lighting and her concern with more immediate threats like plants looking for fresh fertilizer and walking dead looking for fresh recruits. But now that she was looking for – and at – them…

"Gunfire," she said with a nod. "Directed _away_ from the stairs."

"I'm guessing that most of the security forces were gathered here when things got ugly," Leon said thoughtfully. "The stairs would have been a relatively defensible position, but that goes against training – and we didn't exactly see any zombies wearing security uniforms down there." He frowned slightly. "Let me take a look at that map?"

Ada fished the data pad out of her bag and passed it over to him, watching with interest as he shifted the display to zoom in on their immediate area, before turning it this way and that, obviously studying the layout from different angles. She was familiar with reading the arrangement of a building, but something about the areas he was focusing on… "What are you looking for?"

"Defensible areas," Leon replied. "Somewhere any survivors of the initial attack would have fallen back to." He handed the pad back to her and nodded at the branch of the hallway that led away from the conference room and the alternative route leading back towards the central chamber. "Like that. It's ultimately a dead end. Not the best direction to take if you're planning on an escape, but between the limited space down here and the chaos of _zombies_ , it would work as a place to regroup."

Reasonable. Although it raised a possibility that Ada hadn't considered. "Do you think we're likely to find survivors?" she asked neutrally. Because while she certainly sympathized with not wanting to leave any living things in the hell this place had become, she strongly suspected their little band had reached the limit of the number of people they could manage to keep together and safe – particularly given that Annette was erratic at best.

Leon shook his head. "I doubt it," he admitted. "Even if we assume they were lucky, and no one else turned… it's been a while since this happened. Most likely, any survivors waited the initial chaos out, and then made for the shuttles."

True. "Well then, I hope they were considerate enough to leave some for us," Ada said dryly, dropping back to the rearguard as they approached the turn in the corridor. Not that she expected there to be a problem. Given that the shuttles would have been meant to carry everyone from the facility out… Well. Given the number of zombies they'd seen in the facility, there were probably more than enough shuttles to spare.

And survivors making a break for escape might well explain the odd lack of zombies wandering the immediate area, although as they moved down the hallway, the traces of fighting – scars and blood spatter on the walls, spent bullets fallen on the floor and forcing them to be careful with how they placed their feet – became more frequent. After considering that for a moment, Ada decided to take that as a promising sign. If nothing else, it suggested that the path down to the shuttles would be relatively clear of enemies, unless they wandered in from other areas. Which zombies as a whole didn't seem generally inclined to do…

 _But the Lickers and the triffids might_. And given the signs of fighting, the lack of zombie corpses was… unsettling.

At the end of the hallway was a large office, the door hanging open as if the occupants had left in a great rush. Inside, Ada immediately noted the difference between this place and the other offices they had passed through; several lockers, doors open and contents – clothing, the odd candy bar or datapad, even a battered hard-copy steampunk-fantasy crime novel, amusingly – lying in a heap on the floor. Ada eyed one packet of chocolates for a moment before mentally sighing and turning away to study the desk. Given the level of contamination in this place, she wasn't going to risk it. Or for that matter, eating _anything_ without disinfecting and preferably sterilizing her hands, face and mouth _thoroughly_. Just in case.

The desk, she noticed with interest, had two terminals – and also multiple holo-displays, showing a series of images. Some only showed a vague haze, or had gone completely dark; next to the dark ones, however, she recognized an image of the conference room, looking down from one of the corners towards the vine.

Ada wondered if it was her imagination, or if the pods really had moved from the time she and Leon had seen them just a few minutes ago.

"The floor security center?" she guessed.

"Looks like it," Leon agreed from where he was poking through the fallen possessions. "Strange place to put it, but I think we all figured out a while ago that whoever was in charge of design was probably drinking and throwing darts. Any chance you can access the system from here?"

Ada's fingers were already moving over the controls. But, unsurprisingly, the familiar standby screen met her. "This computer is down as well – I'm guessing the security offices are all linked to the servers in the central hub." Which meant the displays were all live feed, while the recordings went straight to the main databank. Blast.

Leon sighed quietly, rising from the pile of abandoned belongings. "Then I suppose we're back to the original plan, of searching the rooms one by one," he said reluctantly-

And was interrupted by a loud _thud_.

In the back corner of the room was a door – probably leading to a closet, based on the simplicity of it compared to the high-security doors that seemed to be everywhere in the facility. As they turned to it in surprise, the door shuddered again – and then again, steady and almost rhythmic.

They could hear the low, familiar groaning seeping through the heavy door.

Ada traded a quick glance with Leon, and the cop stepped over to the door while she positioned herself; the hinges were on this side, meaning the door was going to swing towards them. Leon nodded to her, then reached down and tested the handle.

His eyebrows rose, and he looked over at her. "Locked," he said, his voice quiet but not deliberately so; the zombie on the other side already knew they were there, after all. "From the inside, I think."

Ouch. Ada nodded, lowering her gun. "Trade me," she said.

While Leon took up her earlier position, Ada crouched beside the door, carefully setting her gun on the ground near at hand. Only when she was absolutely confident that she would be able to snatch it up immediately if the door gave way unexpectedly did she pull out her picks and set to work on the lock.

It was more complicated than she'd expected; by the time the latch clicked open, her legs were starting to burn from the strain of holding her position. Ada was anything but out of shape, but it had been a very, very long evening. Finally, however, she heard the deadbolt slide back. Immediately, she dropped the picks and grabbed her gun as she rose quickly to her feet. Even unlocked, however, the door still held, and so Ada positioned herself on the hinge side and reached for the handle.

The minute she turned the handle, the door flew open as the zombie hit it from the inside. Only the fact that Ada had expected it kept her from being smashed in the face as she took a quick step back and steadied the door before it bounced her off the wall. Half a heartbeat later, she heard the sharp retort of Leon's gun, and the groaning cut off with the _thud_ of a body dropping to the floor. A clean headshot, then – which was a good thing, because when she stepped out from behind the door, her eyes immediately fell on the heavy, bulletproof vest and dark uniform of a security officer.

 _Armored zombies. What fun._

But a good thing as well. By the time she'd retrieved her picks and stowed them back in the hidden pocket in her bag, Leon had already begun patting the corpse down. As she turned, she saw the tense look on his face ease a bit, and he settled back on his heels and held up another of those small cards.

"And we have security-level access," he said, audibly relieved as he flicked the card to her.

Ada caught it easily, only to blink as Leon resumed searching the body. "What now?" she asked.

"I'm hoping… hah." Turning the zombie's corpse slightly, he pulled something small off the front of the vest.

Ada blinked, looking closer. "A body camera?"

"Not exactly normal fare, but there's enough paranoia in the set-up here, I thought it was worth a chance." Leon studied it for a moment, nodded, and tucked the camera away into his pocket. "If I'm not mistaken, this type is designed to save its recordings directly, as well as transmitting them to a central data bank. Just in case something interferes with the transmission – or with the transmitted recordings themselves." He pushed himself back to his feet, reflexively taking a wary step back as the zombie's arms and legs continued to twitch. "It won't hurt to have it as a backup, in case we have trouble getting into the computers."

Ada raised an eyebrow. "We do have the access card," she pointed out. And it would work; she recognized the connector built into the card, meant to provide both a physical and a coded bridge to open the system.

"That doesn't mean that they don't have additional passwords protecting the system," Leon replied pragmatically. "I would."

True enough. Not that Ada was particularly concerned – so long as she had initial access to the system, no password would keep her out for long. Still, even something that basic could end up taking time, and they'd already used up a fair bit of that getting this far…

 _Hm_.

Turning, she went to take another look at the desk.

Leon was watching her, frowning slightly as she ran her hands along the underside of the desk, and then the drawers. "What are you…?"

Paper met her fingers. _Hah. Bingo_.

Smiling, Ada pulled the list of passwords loose and held it up between fore and middle finger, waving it playfully in the air. "And we have our access."

Leon blinked – and then, to her complete amusement, buried his face in his free hand for a moment. "Seriously?" he groaned. "I know there are always people who just write them down, but I'd expect _security officers_ to know better."

"Security officers are often amongst the worst offenders," Ada corrected, smiling wryly in sympathy. She'd barely believed it herself, back when she'd first figured it out. Even if, in hindsight, it made sense. "They work with sensitive information – which means the codes protecting it are complex, and change on a regular basis. Human memory has limits." She regarded the slip of paper with wry amusement. "In a way, I suppose this is the most secure solution they could find. It's inside the complex – anyone who gets this far already has physical access to the facility. And even the most skilled hacker in the world can't remotely steal information from a piece of paper."

Leon sighed and shook his head, although the corner of his mouth quirked a little in a small smile. "I suppose you would know, in your line of work."

It… took a moment for that to sink in, which said more about her level of fatigue than aching legs ever would. Lowering her hand, Ada arched an eyebrow at the man. "Oh?" she echoed neutrally.

Leon's wry smile didn't change in the least. "Educated guess," he admitted. "You weren't just here for that reporter. And for all that you say that you came because you were worried about your boyfriend, you weren't exactly looking for him very hard. Not as hard as you were looking for a way to get down here." His smile broadened slightly as he shook his head. "Besides. You kind of showed your hand with the computers."

Ada allowed her other brow to rise at that. "And that doesn't concern you," she stated as much as asked.

Leon tilted his head to the side, eyes amused. "Are you going to try to eat me?"

She very nearly laughed at that. Very deliberately, she forced her face back to the cool, neutral mask that normally served her so well. "No. But I do have a gun."

"True. But you're not going to shoot me."

Leon sounded so blasted _confident_ that she was very tempted to do so, just to prove him wrong. Except… he wasn't. She _wasn't_ going to shoot him. He'd taken a bullet for her already, and she owed him for that. And…

And all of a sudden, she had a lot more sympathy for others in her field who'd let jobs and reputations go down for their partner. They'd been working as a team to get this far through the hell that the city had turned into, and…

Huffing ruefully, Ada lowered the gun from its half-raised position.

Leon nodded, and then shrugged. "Besides, you don't really have any reason to shoot me – because I'm not planning on stopping you," he said bluntly.

Ada blinked, honestly taken aback. "No?" she echoed.

Leon sighed, the amusement fading from his face and bearing, to be replaced by grim determination. "I meant what I said to Claire," he said flatly. "We _have_ to get word about this mess out. And if that requires relying on illicit channels…" He shook his head, shoulders slumping slightly. "I just have one request."

"What is it?" Ada asked quietly.

"I know this is probably just a job for you, and that you have your employer's request to think about," Leon said. "Just… be careful how much you give them. I can't say I like the idea of _any_ of this getting out to people unscrupulous enough to steal it. That implies they're thinking of using it."

A point she'd very carefully been _avoiding_ thinking about ever since she'd realized just how far down the rabbit hole this mess led, Ada had to admit to herself. But Leon did have a point. She wasn't sure she'd forgive herself if this was unleashed somewhere else.

Of course, she had her own situation to consider. But either way…

Shaking her head, Ada allowed herself her own crooked smile and held up the access card and the passwords again. "Well. First things first. Let's go get what we came to find and get out of here, shall we?"

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

 _Click. Click. Click-tik_. _Tak_. _Tik-tak_.

" _Haaaaaaaa…_ "

Claire gritted her teeth and forced herself to remain absolutely still as the almost metallic edge of that raspy, hoarse breathing seemed to grate down the length of her spine, as across the room pink and red flesh swayed back and forth in a lazy, lizard-like crawl, too-long talons clicking loudly on the polished floor.

And stopped, the eyeless head rising as a long tongue extended snake-like into the air, shifting back and forth. _Just_ like a snake, sampling scents.

Claire almost stopped breathing. Only the knowledge that if something _did_ happen she would need every dreg of oxygen she could get kept her lungs going – that, and the level of concentration required to keep her breathing steady, even and _quiet_ with her heart hammering in her ears. There was a vent between them, loud enough to cover most of the sounds they couldn't avoid making, and if they were lucky it was interfering with the air currents enough that even with that ridiculous tongue, the thing wouldn't smell them either.

 _Go away!_ she thought at it fiercely. _There's nothing in here, it's empty, just keep going and get out of here already!_

…which, in hindsight, might have been a very _bad_ idea, because the Hollows had supposedly been electromagnetically sensitive, and Sherry certainly was, and Claire was a Quincy but she didn't know if just focused _thinking_ would be enough to cause a pulse but if it did…

But the Licker didn't react. A moment later, the tongue retracted, and it resumed its lazy, back-and-forth sway as it moved towards the door on the far side.

Seeing long talons lazily flick the handle open was hair-raising in and of itself.

Then the door swung shut, and the hoarse breathing and _tik-tak-click_ ing was gone.

Claire didn't move, however. Still tense, she waited, and _waited_ …

Behind her, Sherry let out a shaky breath. "I think it's gone," she said in a small voice. "I don't feel it anymore, at least."

Claire _knew_ she'd been breathing the whole time. That didn't stop what felt like every bit of air in her body rushing out all at once, as her shoulders slumped momentarily.

And only momentarily. That Licker was gone. There were others, not far away – which was why she hadn't risked trying to take that one out, even knowing that Leon and Ada would be coming this way as well and might walk into it without Sherry's senses to warn them in advance. One Licker, hitting it with surprise on her side, she could handle. More than that, and… well. She only had one grenade left.

"Interesting," Annette mused. "Clearly we devoted insufficient attention to behavioral modifications. In confinement, the L-series never exhibited any social inclinations, or even intelligence beyond that of a domestic dog, but obviously their capabilities extend beyond that."

Claire wanted to be furious at that; like the zombies, the Lickers had been _people_ once, before being used in experiments that most people would hesitate inflicting on the ugliest, nastiest vermin in the known universe. But… at this point, she'd almost gone numb to the horror. At the moment, she was more worried about Annette's tone. The woman sounded distant and clinical, like she was taking notes in an observation room, or maybe kibitzing a bad movie, rather than pressed against the wall of a fitfully lit highway in a facility that had been overrun by the results of her own experiments, and Claire had to bite down a shiver. She'd known the woman wasn't exactly sane, but she hadn't really realized how bad it was until two rooms back, when they'd run into another Licker. _Literally_ – Annette had nearly walked straight into the creature without even pausing, as if the fact that the thing could and would eviscerate her with one slash of those talons or chomp of those needle-like teeth didn't even register. She _knew_ it was there. It just… didn't seem to have any more emotional impact than the average scientific paper.

Just like now, as the scientist swept past Claire and into the room the Licker had just left without even pausing to check for any other nastiness that might be in the area. Sherry quickly followed, frustration and worry flashing across the little girl's face for just a moment. Then her expression rearranged itself to wide, scared eyes and a faintly trembling lower lip, and Claire wondered if she was imagining the pulse of _:scared, dark, want Mom!:_ that accompanied that expression.

She didn't think so. Not when Annette's brisk walk faltered suddenly, the woman looking over her shoulder as the mask of the scientist cracked slightly and the mother peeked out. The moment of hesitation lasted just long enough for Sherry to grab her mother's hand, and when Annette began moving again, it was much more cautiously.

 _Kid really knows how to work it_ , Claire thought – but what would have been funny in any other circumstances just made her heart hurt for Sherry's sake, right now. She hadn't missed the flash of determined calculation that had crossed Sherry's face back when they'd had that close call earlier. That was when Sherry had attached herself to her mother's side, and the fierce little shinigami girl determined to pull her weight in the team had become a scared young preteen begging for comfort and protection.

And it seemed to be working. So long as Sherry was there, constantly reminding Annette of her presence, Annette seemed to do better at remembering _why_ they were down here in the first place.

Annette stopped next to a small terminal set beside a massive industrial door marked _Restricted Access: Authorized Personnel Only_. "This leads to the freight and facilities area," she said briskly. "From there, we have a freight elevator that leads directly to the shuttle pad."

Claire almost choked. An _elevator_? For an emergency escape route?

Granted, the power systems seemed relatively stable, at least the back-ups. But… God. If there was one thing she'd learned from her grandfather's and father's stories, and from suffering through emergency drills at every school she'd ever attended, it was that choke points killed people. And an elevator, which could only carry so many people, and meant everyone else had to _stop moving and wait_ while it carried a load down and then back up, was one heck of a choke point.

Even in just a regular disaster situation, asking scared people to stand around waiting was a recipe for trouble. In a case like this, where zombies and monsters would be coming after them…

 _Please, please tell me someone had the sense to install emergency stairs, too._

The terminal beeped once as Annette slid some kind of card through the sensor, and the doors let out a hiss as they cycled open, revealing a hallway sloping down in a long ramp.

Claire had to brace herself before stepping through; the red lights running along the joins of walls, floor and ceiling were a little _too_ much like the stereotypical haunted ship from horror movies, the ones that always started with a derelict spaceship appearing out of the void with all hands mysteriously dead or missing. The _clang_ as her boot came down on metal grating most definitely did not help. Especially given what she'd run into the last time she wandered into this kind of industrial metal flooring.

 _Suck it up and deal_ , she reminded herself, leading the way down the ramp. _Light's red because that's easier on night vision, and a lot of the space-freighter types end up with sensitive eyes._

Reaching the room at the bottom… didn't really help her believe that. Not when the first thing that met her eyes was a series of clear canisters that ran from floor to ceiling on either side of the narrow walkway marked out with safety lights, the red gleam of the overhead lighting bright against glass but seemingly swallowed up by the hazy contents.

The whole setup looked far, _far_ too much like a scene from one of those revamped games, the one with the hero who'd been turned superhuman by pickling in liquid energy or something, and for a moment Claire just _froze_ at the bottom of the ramp, desperately trying to wrestle down the conviction that if she looked any closer, she'd see the forms of _things_ that had once been people in there…

 _That describes the whole city right now, you idiot, why are you letting it get to you_ here _?_

Besides. Once she'd thoroughly stomped down that atavistic reaction and mentally sat on it for good measure, and then taken a _proper_ look, she nearly slapped herself in the face from the sheer simplicity of the obvious answer. This was a _biomedical research facility_. That meant chemicals, ranging from liquid to gaseous, and in ridiculous quantities, many needing to be stored under pressure. It made much more sense to keep that kind of bulk down here, secure behind reinforced walls, and siphon off whatever any particular lab needed.

That part made sense. What _didn't_ make sense was routing the _emergency escape route_ through here. Given that the usual sorts of disasters that would force a full evacuation was very likely to _break_ some of those canisters, and then the evacuees would be walking straight into a cloud of gases that could range from unbreathable to skin-meltingly toxic. And if more than one broke, very potentially _explosive_.

Okay, yes, she _got_ that this was a top-secret installation, but seriously, hadn't _anyone_ conferred with a safety inspector when they designed this place? At this rate, she was starting to wonder if the "evacuation plan" hadn't been designed with a mind towards eliminating any potential witnesses.

 _I'm not sure I'd put it past Umbrella_ , she realized, with a completely different sort of chill searing its way down her back.

"Claire?" Sherry prompted from behind her, uneasily.

Claire shook herself with a mental slap, suddenly realizing that she'd been standing there wool-gathering for far too long. "Sorry," she said, stepping out of the way and making herself look past the canisters to scan the area for threats as Annette walked by. Luckily, it didn't look like the zombies had made it this far. Although she wasn't sure _lucky_ was quite the right term, given that it suggested no survivors had made it down here, either.

 _There are probably other routes to get down to the shuttles_ , she reminded herself, following a wary step or two behind Annette as the woman headed for the elevator doors at the far end of the room.

The thought did bring up another, more immediate concern, and Claire frowned, glancing back at the inside of the door that led back to the main lab area. It had closed behind them; a good thing, given the wandering Lickers, but… "Are the others going to be able to get down here without you?" she asked uneasily.

At least they should be able to find the trail. Before they'd left the Birkins' office, Sherry had fished a roll of colored masking tape out of the supplies, and had been diligently leaving bright neon orange tags to mark every door and corner their trio had taken on the long climb down to the lower levels. Even as Claire watched, one of the girl's tentacles slapped a third strip of tape onto the elevator door, forming a downward-pointing arrow – a reasonable assumption, given that there didn't seem to be a button to go up. They had to be on the top level of the freight area, then.

"Of course they can," Annette said, pressing the button to call the elevator. "They'll have one of the security access cards. They'll be fine."

Which would be a lot more comforting if Annette didn't sound like she was discussing the fates of characters in a movie, Claire thought with an inner wince, watching the light at one end of the elevator's floor indicator come on. Interesting. It looked like the car was down at the bottom of the shaft. That seemed a little odd, if it was generally used to carry cargo _up_ from the shuttles. Maybe some survivors had made it out after all.

Then she really winced, as a small hand latched onto hers with enough force that Claire could feel the pricking of small claws. "Ouch! Sherry, what…"

Sherry's eyes were wide and intent, staring up at the lights as the elevator began to climb – no, _past_ the lights, to the ceiling overhead. "Something's coming," she whispered, tentacles tensed and ready as strands of hair drifted in the air.

Claire tensed, freeing her hand as she scanned the shadows of the ceiling. "Coming? From whe-"

 _WHAM_.

Dust and fragments of what might have been dust or broken stone pattered down around them as the section of the metal-plated ceiling directly above them _shuddered_ , as though something massive have thrown all its weight against it. Breathing a curse, Claire reached out and grabbed Annette's sleeve, dragging the scientist with them as she and Sherry began backing away, not daring to turn or take her eyes off that plate. Annette followed, looking up at the ceiling with distant curiosity and not the slightest trace of alarm as it shuddered again, more dust raining down, and this time she definitely heard the clatter of broken fixings as the solid steel _bent_ -

Then it shattered, and a monster slammed down onto the metal flooring.

The sheer force of the impact made the floor shake, the chemical canisters rattling ominously in their moorings, and Claire almost stumbled and fell – or maybe that was just her feet tripping over each other in their sudden haste to get _away_ from the thing slowly straightening up and turning to face them.

It was… humanoid. Almost. Except that a second pair of arms jutted out of its torso, and its head was almost an afterthought, dwarfed by bony protrusions jutting up from the _massive_ upper pair of arms, as if the bones had grown too big for even its massive frame. And it was _huge_. Well over two meters in height, minimum, its flesh the blackened color of rot, fading to red on the chest, where what should have been the ribcage was a gaping hole, long sharp bone fragments jutting out like the creepiest, most mis-matched teeth ever, opening and closing with every shift of its body.

There was no white lab coat. No ID card. Nothing _human_ about the thing at all, unless you counted the basic overall body structure.

But when those massive upper arms rotated _backwards_ , back and around until they loomed over the creature's shoulders like two scorpion tails poised to strike… she _recognized_ the glaring red eye embedded in the bicep of the right-hand one.

Without thinking, Claire grabbed Sherry and shoved the girl safely behind her as the monster that had been William Birkin took one lumbering step forward, its foot hitting the metal flooring with enough force that she could _feel_ the floor vibrating under her feet.

 _This is not good_ , Claire thought, feeling cold sweat beading on her brow as she continued slowly backing away, her free hand behind her to make sure Sherry was moving with her and the handgun a heavy weight in her other hand. Ammunition she still had in plenty, but she remembered the way Birkin had barely even flinched at her gunfire before. She still had one grenade, but… down here, there was nothing she could count on to protect them from the shrapnel. And she really didn't want to mess with explosives so close to the exposed tanks.

Which left her little choice but to keep falling back, letting Birkin herd her farther and farther away from the elevator at the end of the room. Maybe if she could draw him far enough away, Sherry and Annette could circle around the outer edge of the room and back…

Barely visible behind the monster, the fourth indicator light above the elevator – out of more than _twenty!_ – lit up with a soft, bizarrely incongruous chime that sent ice down Claire's back.

It didn't _matter_ if they could get to the elevator – because they were stuck on _its_ timetable. And from the look of things, it was a very slow one, and once they got out of this she was going to find out whoever had decided _elevators as part of the emergency exit route_ was a good idea and burn the idiot in effigy…!

"Sherry," Claire said quietly; she'd completely lost track of Annette at this point, and frankly, cold as it was and as much as she'd probably hate herself later, she couldn't afford to worry about the woman. Survival alone was going to take everything she had. "Get ready, and when I signal, run back up the ramp, okay?" And she'd have to pray that it wouldn't take a key card to open the door from _this_ side. And that the Licker hadn't wandered back into the area while they were away, or at least that Birkin would scare the thing off. It was smart enough to open doors; that meant it was probably smart enough to run for its life, right?

Then the monster lumbered another step forward, moving into a patch of better lighting, and all of Claire's racing thoughts suddenly screeched to a horrified, silent _stop_.

She'd thought there was nothing recognizable save the eye. She'd been wrong.

High on the left side of the monster's chest, just beyond the gaping maw of rib-teeth surrounding that pulsating red core, was a small pale patch. It was flattened, distorted – like a silly-putty mask that had been squashed completely flat.

But still, recognizably, the face of William Birkin.

 _Please_ , Claire thought distantly, through the strange ringing in her ears, _oh_ please _don't let Sherry have seen that…_

"Claire, look _out_!"

Sherry slammed into Claire from behind as something _crashed_ onto the floor right behind them, the little girl's momentum knocking Claire clean off her feet before she could react. Reflex took over before Claire could even _think_ , muscle memory from ache-inducing self-defense classes and rough-housing with her brother making her tuck her body so that her shoulder hit the floor first, stretching out the force of the impact into a tumbling roll.

Even so, she felt the heart-stopping _tug_ as something fast-moving and massive clipped her trailing ponytail as she went down.

That same muscle memory made her extend her legs as she somersaulted over that shoulder, slowing her spin and planting her feet as momentum brought her back to a standing position, facing back at the attacker.

With a low, hollow-sounding grunt, Birkin slowly drew himself back upright, extracting the bone-white claws of its upper arm from where it had tangled in the warped, bent metal frame that had surrounded the gas canisters. White cracks spiderwebbed out from the side of the canister where the missed blow had clipped what was _supposed_ to be impact-resistant glass, and Claire had the hair-raising feeling that she could see wisps of vapor slipping out through the cracks…

 _Focus! The gas_ might _kill you. The monster_ will _…!_

Claire's heart almost stopped.

Sherry had planted herself between Claire and the monster that had been her father once. The girl's face was white, her shoulders visibly shaking, and her hands clenched hard enough that Claire suspected those claws were driving into her own palms – but she glared at the monster anyway, the air around her practically crackling with stubborn determination. Her upper pair of tentacles were poised ready to strike above her shoulders, an eerie echo of the massive arms of the monster doing the same. The lower pair were pulled in close behind her back, clearly ready to stabilize the girl or lash out at anything that might come up behind her.

"Uh-uh," she said flatly, never taking her eyes off the monster as she shifted slightly, her weight poised on the balls of her feet so that she could dart in any direction on a moment's notice. "You don't get to hurt people. It's _wrong_ and I'm not letting you!"

"Sherry, be careful!" Claire said, raising her gun to aim at the monster's upper body, looming well above the girl's head, wavering between trying to draw a bead on that red eye that she _knew_ had been a weak point, and that eerie, pulsating red mass in the center of the chest, beyond the rib-teeth.

For a moment, the monster seemed to regard Sherry blankly, not a hint of recognition in its bearing as the score marks left from tearing through the metal racks knitted themselves back together before Claire's eyes. Then, roaring, it reared back, one large arm rising higher in preparation to swing even as the smaller ones reached forward as if to grab and hold-

The loud _boom_ of a shotgun cracked the air of the room, and the roar changed in pitch and tone as the monster whirled, revealing a second massive eye on the ridge of its back – one that had burst, weeping pus and darker fluids down its back as the monster turned its attention to the woman standing behind it.

Annette didn't even look at it, looking right past the monster to Sherry. "Sherry, you stay with Claire and take the elevator when it arrives," she said briskly, sounding for all the world like she was reminding the girl to come straight home after school. "The shuttles are on the bottom level. Let me handle talking to your father."

Then the woman turned and ran, taking off down a side corridor that Claire hadn't even noticed when they'd first come in. Apparently forgetting about the two right behind him, the monster charged after her.

"Mo-!" Sherry started to shout, and then visibly bit it back, slowly walking backwards until she bumped into Claire. Swallowing hard, Claire forced her left hand to let go of the gun and reached down, letting Sherry grab her hand and cling as the girl shook.

Behind them, metal slid on metal as the elevator door opened with an utterly inappropriately cheerful _bing!_ , and Claire swallowed dryly. "Come on," she said softly. "Let's go."

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

Really. The state of the facility was _deplorable_. She was going to lodge a complaint with management; how could they _possibly_ manage anything resembling research when there were test subjects and corpses just wandering loose, contaminating everything?

 _dead dead they're all dead oh god_

And the generator room! It was nothing short of astounding that anything in the facility still worked at all, given the massive plant that had taken root in the center of the room, breaking through all the main power couplings and leaving the place absolutely _strewn_ with rubble and stray plants wandering about as though they owned the place. Really, what had they been thinking, funding Wyndham's little pet project like that?

 _lying old fools_ they're _the ones who sent the assassins_ burn _them, burn them_ all

The main systems terminal, however, was still up and running. She had to push her way through the foliage, and one of them spat some strange sap that set the sleeve of her white lab coat smoking. Eugh. She would need to switch into a new one before she went back to the lab, especially when the liquid ate clear through the coat and her shirt and began burning away the skin of her arm.

 _it hurts it burns oh god I'm going to die here_

But for the time being, she reached the terminal safely.

Umbrella knew the risks they were running with the facility – this was, after all, the place where the corporation researched diseases and bioweapons far too dangerous for public consumption, always on the front lines of the biological war that had been running ever since the Republic had passed the Constitutional Declaration of Human Genetics. After all, refusal to modify the human genome meant that their opponents knew exactly what they were striking – which meant that medicine had to be even more creative, and aggressive, to keep their people safe. And that required knowing your enemy.

Which meant that every single lab head and their top assistants knew the codes required to trigger the appropriate response, in case of a massive biological contaminant outbreak.

Of course, access to the appropriate terminals was restricted. And it required two researchers' codes to activate the system.

Calmly, she input William's emergency code.

 _You threatened our daughter._

The terminal shuddered under her fingers as stone shattered behind her, followed by the hissing of mobile plants and the green smell of sap as vines were torn apart. It was _fascinating_. Clearly the G-virus had not been as developed as they'd hoped – they hadn't had the chance to proceed beyond the most basic testing, and they'd been observing the mice for adverse reactions first, before they'd planned to test the efficacy of the healing factor.

Obviously, they'd missed some of the factors involved in controlling the healing. And yet, despite that, the successive mutations were clearly striving for a physiologically viable result. _Fascinating_. The sheer resilience of the virus's physical alterations was absolutely astounding.

First things first, however. Annette finished inputting her own code, and then turned around, crossing her arms to frown up at her husband as he loomed over her, clawed hand raised. Overhead, she heard the alarm system splutter to life. "William, we need to talk," she said firmly.

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

"I'm in."

Leon breathed a quiet sigh of relief as he stepped back from the opening in the security center. Odd, that the place didn't have any doors – especially with the white noise of the constantly rushing wind in the shaft all around them. His best guess was that the place had been designed for visibility, letting the security officers stationed in the center keep an eye on the entrances to the three different wings, but… Well. The blood on the walkway and the shattered terminal screens were evidence for how well _that_ had worked. "Full access?" he asked.

"Enough to get you your evidence." In the shadowed little chamber, Ada looked downright eerie, her face lit from below by the display. It made the shadows dance oddly across her expression as her lips pursed in apparent frustration. "It looks as though the security system is separate from the one used by the researchers, however; I can't access any of their files from here. If I had time, I might be able to cross the systems, but…"

"We're a bit short on that," Leon agreed, joining her at the terminal but only glancing briefly over her shoulder. He knew a reasonable amount of computer tech, but hacking had never been his strength. Not to the degree of what Ada was doing, at least. "I suppose that makes sense. If the systems are separate, your security people can keep an eye on things without having direct access to proprietary information. One less potential breach in the wall of silence."

"True." Ada's huff was almost amused. "I do hate it when people think of details like that. It makes my job so much more difficult." The playful tone dropped away as she shifted, turning brisk and businesslike. "What specifically are you looking for?"

"Video of the virus spreading," Leon replied instantly. "Particularly of people becoming infected and turning, and what people attempted in terms of fighting and stopping them." He could certainly _explain_ what the zombies were, what fighting them was like, what strategies and tactics worked best against them… but he knew from experience that audiovisual demonstrations could hit viscerally home in a way that words just _couldn't_. "And imagery from the original break-in, if you can get it. Including anything you can get on what happened to William Birkin. During _and_ after."

"That could be tricky," Ada admitted, fingers flying over the controls as the display flickered through screens almost too fast to follow. "Whoever the intruders were, they went to fairly significant lengths to keep from being seen. But the cameras should still have been recording, even if the main system was on standby, so I imagine I can dig up something. Anything beyond that?"

If they didn't have access to the research data, then odds of identifying exactly _who_ was responsible for involving the Birkins and kicking off this disaster were slim at best… as were the odds of being able to back-trace the contact and locate this top-secret Project. Which meant… "Video of the researchers _testing_ the virus," he said grimly. "And whatever else they've been up to down here. As much as you can get."

That drew Ada's attention, as her fingers stilled for a moment and she glanced at him, one eyebrow arched slightly in surprise. "That's more vindictive than I expected," she said mildly. "Are you planning to take down Umbrella as well?"

Dizzying, terrifying thought, that. Umbrella was the producer of Panimmunity. Without that, the Republic would be in serious trouble. Even without the threat of the Confederacy and the Satrapy to think about, every new planet meant exposure to a dizzying array of new biological dangers. And yet…

Leon set his jaw. "What the Birkins were doing down here, testing viruses on _people_ … that was illegal as hell, and flat-out _wrong_. And everything they did was observed, recorded, and reported. Which means that there's no way Umbrella's upper echelons didn't have at least a general idea of what was going on down here."

Ada nodded thoughtfully, fingers flying again. "And given that this facility has to date to the founding of the city… Well. It looks like they've been shipping people who won't be missed down here for a while."

He nodded shortly. "And if Umbrella's been funding and facilitating nonconsensual human tests? That needs to be _stopped_ , and stopped hard."

Not to mention, if he was going to get in touch with this Project that Annette had mentioned, he'd need something that _could not_ be ignored. If he could get proof of what Umbrella had been up to, that would at least get him some credibility.

 _So long as I can figure out an approach that keeps them from just putting me out of the way as an inconvenience to a working system_. After all, the Republic had reasons to turn a blind eye to what had gone on down here.

Ada nodded. "This may take a while," she warned. "There's a lot of data to sort through."

Not to mention that she'd need to take time for whatever she was after, Leon knew. He nodded, trying to fight down his own impatience. Normally, he was fairly good at dealing with the hurry-up-and-wait nature of investigations, but right now… well, he had enough adrenaline to spare in his system that the idea of waiting around and doing _nothing_ while Ada worked was grating.

Hm. "Ada, can you link this terminal to the live surveillance feed?" he asked, nodding to the nearest intact screen, two seats down from where Ada was working.

She raised both eyebrows this time, but nodded. "Easily enough. The terminals are designed to default to it. Why?"

The terminal he'd chosen opened onto an image of an empty hallway somewhere in the complex. Leon nodded his thanks, bending over it. "I'm going to see if I can locate Claire and the others, see how they're doing," he explained, and then focused his attention on the interface.

Ah. That was a relief – as he'd hoped, the interface itself was fairly straightforward. After all, security officers couldn't afford to be flipping through complex controls while trying to track a potential problem in the brewing. After a minute or two of study, he'd found the controls that let him track which cameras he was following, as well as the controls that let him shift between floors and sections of the facility.

Actually finding anything was a little more difficult. Many of the settings came back with errors – damaged or destroyed cameras was his guess, since they seemed to be running on their own independent power systems. And all too many others showed blood-splattered corridors, or the slowly swaying figures of quiescent zombies. Others gave glimpses off prowling Lickers, or more triffids furled up where they'd taken root in corpses.

 _I think the five of us may well be the only living humans left in the entire place._

Not entirely surprising; as he'd told Ada earlier, anyone who'd survived the initial outbreak crisis probably hadn't been exactly interested in hanging around. But at the same time… brrr.

 _There!_

Claire and Sherry, standing uneasily in a very small room, watching something a little to the left of his camera. Given that he was looking down and from an angle at them… _Elevator?_

 _Claire and Sherry. No Annette_. From the look of things, the space wasn't big enough for her to simply be out of sight. And security cameras were generally placed to prevent that, anyway. And given the way Sherry was clinging to Claire…

Bracing himself, Leon quickly scanned the terminal, looking for… ah. Reaching out, he unhooked a headset from its storage cubby and settled it on his head. A simple tap activated it, and a flashing icon on the display next to the timestamp told him that he'd connected to the intercom.

"Claire, Sherry," he said, pitching his voice to be a calm and level, the way he'd been trained to on communications; in an op, no one wanted the guy talking into your ear to be screaming, or even obviously stressed – not when you had your own problems to worry about. At her own terminal, Ada glanced up in momentary surprise at the sound of his voice, but then simply nodded and turned back at her own display. "This is Leon. Can you hear me?"

Claire started, eyes reflexively scanning the small elevator before they seemed to lock onto his – she must have spotted the camera in the corner. "Leon? Where are you?"

Good – the intercom had two-way communication. He'd thought it would, but at this point he didn't want to take anything for granted. "Ada and I are in the command center. We should be heading out…" He glanced at Ada.

She didn't look back, just tilted her head slightly as she regarded her terminal. "Five minutes, at the most," she suggested.

Huh. That was a lot faster than he'd anticipated. "Soon," he temporized.

Claire started to bite her lip before catching herself. "Be careful," she urged. "The… the monster. From before. It followed us."

Leon grimaced, barely biting back the urge to swear. "Annette?"

Claire reached down, wrapping an arm around Sherry's small shoulders and pulling her close as the girl buried her face against Claire's side, and Leon winced. "She led him away from us. Just a minute or two ago."

A minute or two… Frowning, Leon quickly ran through the different camera views available on that level. Unfortunately, something had played merry havoc with the wiring – that, or the destruction was worse down there, and he didn't like the thought of that at _all_. Either way, he couldn't find any sign of either Birkin. _Any_ sign, which meant the chase must have led into one of the damaged areas.

 _I wish I could think that was a good sign_.

Through the transmitter, he heard a low chime, and returned to the elevator camera to find Claire and Sherry both tensed. "We're at the bottom," Claire told him. "Get down here as soon as you can, Leon. The sooner we're out of here, the better."

"Right. Good luck," Leon told her, and shut the terminal display down. Whatever met them down there, he couldn't do anything to help from here.

He turned away from the display just in time to see Ada closing some kind of document file. "Done," she told him, ducking down below the level of the terminal for a moment. She came up holding two data chips. One, she tucked into her bag. The other, she held out to him.

"Duplicate copies?" he asked, taking it.

"Of the relevant evidence, yes," she agreed, as he opened his vest and tucked the chip into one of the padded inner pockets. The design was meant for an ID card and keys, to prevent theft, but with luck it would also keep the small device safe if things turned a little rough during their escape. "I also plotted the fastest route down to the shuttle bay from here. We'll have to be careful on the lower levels, but-"

The shudder that seemed to ripple through the entire facility might have been his imagination. The sudden, discordant shriek of emergency alarms echoing up through the shaft from all levels and in all directions was _not_.

" _Warning_ ," echoed a female voice over the intercom, speaking in the unmistakable monotone of a recorded message. " _The self-destruct sequence has been activated. All employees, proceed to the bottom platform. Repeat, all employees_ …"

"Self-destruct," Leon said, almost bemused. "Somehow, I'm not even surprised."

Furious, maybe. This facility was located directly under a _population center_. What would happen to Raccoon City if it went up?

 _Raccoon City's already gone._

Ada had already snatched up her gun, shoving the security access card into her pocket. "Time to go?" she suggested, already moving for the walkway.

"Time to go," he agreed.

* * *

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

* * *

AN:Just a friendly reminder: Annette is about as unreliable a source of information as you can get. Particularly because she may not know everything about who, exactly, was responsible for sending the vaccine out for analysis. Or why they might have done so.

And I must say, Annette is _hard_ to write – particularly given that her characterization varies so dramatically between the different versions of the game. What I ultimately settled on was, Annette was a _sincere_ mother who nevertheless handled mothering itself very badly; she loves and cares for Sherry, but she's no good at showing it. And then the break-in, and her mind just… broke. (…likely because extended exposure to a psychosomatic virus and spending _days_ in an underground lab can't be good for anyone's sanity. And who knows what she's been picking up thanks to the additional electromagnetic "thought-sensing" from the vaccine.) At the point where she appears, she is deeply, deeply disassociated (hence the distraction and slipping into "scientific fugue," not to mention the denial), and more than a little paranoid. Which, well, lady's got plenty of reasons…

Not that she was a very nice person to begin with. I really wanted to bring in the older zombies from the Umbrella lab, and to do that, I had to keep the canon backstory of them disappearing people to experiment on. Which, given that Vathara's canon clearly establishes that the Hollow virus hits _anything_ mammalian (thus making human experimentation unnecessary)… Well. Eep.

Speaking of. If and when Yamamoto hears about this mess, heads are going to roll. Annette's among them (metaphorically speaking). Military contract, yes, but the point of the military is to _save civilian lives_ (while killing non-civilians and breaking things, admittedly).


	7. Countdown

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

 **Countdown**

* * *

They ran.

Not hard. Frankly, at this point neither of them had the stamina left for an extended sprint, even if they'd been willing to risk it in unfamiliar territory with potential hostiles everywhere. But they hit the walkway at a brisk jog, and didn't slow.

" _All employees, proceed to the bottom platform_ ," the recorded voice droned. " _Repeat, all employees_ …"

"Talk me through the route," Leon suggested, as they cleared the doorway leading into the lab facility and the white noise of the rushing wind in the shaft was muffled by the walls around them.

Ada gave him a quick, distinctly dubious look – but then she nodded slightly. "Down the stairs to the next level, but turn right at the bottom, rather than the left we took to get to the Birkins' lab…"

Leon listened carefully, committing the directions to memory. The plan had been for Claire's team to mark their route, but it wouldn't hurt for both of them to know where they were going, just in case.

Besides – there was a method to his madness. He knew what sort of pace _he_ could hold without draining already strained reserves, but he didn't know Ada's limits. As a general rule, if you were pushing too hard to be able to talk at the same time, you were going too fast.

" _If you get to the crime scene and keel over because you can't breathe, you're nothing but a damn liability!_ " their training master had roared, more than once. " _We're not cheetahs. We don't catch our prey by outracing them. Humans are endurance hunters – we set a pace and then we_ never quit _! So you're going to be running this damn course until you can hit the end of it still standing!_ "

Ada clearly had never been through that kind of focused training, but she was in good shape; Leon only had to drop his pace a little to adjust for her shorter legs before her breathing evened and the words steadied. And by the sharp and then rueful look she gave him, she'd figured out what he was up to.

" _All employees_ …"

Even at the controlled pace they were setting, there was a risk they'd run headlong into trouble before they realized it was there. Fortunately, they were back-tracking through areas they'd already cleared on their way to the security center. Other than a few still-twitching corpses they'd already taken down, it was clear; apparently the zombies really didn't wander too much.

 _Just pray that holds true for the rest of what's down here_ , he thought distantly, as they cleared the doorway into the last hallway. The stairs were right in front of-

Instinct screamed. Leon moved before he had time for first thoughts, let alone second. Reaching out, he grabbed Ada's arm and _dropped_.

The blow that would have torn through both of them struck the wall with a force that sent stone and tile flying and made the lights flicker momentarily as the already damaged electrical system tried to compensate for the shock.

Gritting his teeth, Leon closed his ears against the roar of rage or frustration and rolled away from the massive red-veined feet covered in torn, corpse-white skin, forcing himself up and around to face their attacker. Ada was already on her feet, face pale but eyes steady and determined as she took aim with her handgun at the creature filling the hallway.

"Is that Birkin?" she asked, and Leon had to mentally applaud the poise that let her sound so unconcerned.

"If it's not, we're in more trouble than I thought," Leon said grimly, taking in the changes since they'd escaped the man at the police station. If _that_ was the Birkins' idea of _some minor complications_ …

Slowly, the monster collected itself, extracting talons from the stone with a _crack_ that made Leon cringe. For a moment, there was silence as it looked around, as though confused for some reason, and Leon winced again as he noticed the fresh blood covering both sets of arms and splattered across its front.

 _I don't think Annette got away._

Then the monster's eyes locked onto them, and it turned to face them, roaring in a voice that was chillingly, _horribly_ , still barely recognizable as originally human.

Between them and the staircase.

"I hope you have some good ideas," Ada managed, tone still superficially calm but edged now as her tension began to seep through despite her best efforts at hiding it."I'm a little short on heavy artillery at the moment."

"Conference room," Leon gritted. "We need space to move around it, or it's just going to run straight through us like a freight shuttle…"

The monster moved.

Only the fact that the door to the conference room had clearly been shattered from the other side let them get through it in time, and the impact as the charging monster struck the remaining frame nearly threw Leon off his feet as he cleared the lintel a half-step ahead of it. Staggering a few steps before he was able to regain his balance, he looked around quickly, hoping to find _something_ that would give them an edge-

Ada's hand latched onto his arm with surprising strength, and Leon found himself stumbling after the woman as she headed deeper into the room. "The hole," she said tightly.

"What?"

"That vine broke through the floor, remember? If we can use that, climb down to the next floor before he recovers…!"

It might not help, Leon knew. The pods that had intimidated them so much just a short while earlier were little more than slashed shreds of green, torn apart by furious talons. The massive vine itself looked a little worse for wear, deep gashes in the woody surface oozing a strange, greenish liquid down its side. Birkin had to have climbed up from where Claire and the others had met him this way. Which meant he could probably get down again just as easily.

But Ada was right. They couldn't afford a long fight, not now – given what they'd seen so far of Umbrella's concern for employee safety, Leon doubted that the self-destruct warning gave them more than maybe half an hour at best to clear the area. And… they weren't Birkin's true targets. If they could just get out of sight and _away_ …

Praying the floor wouldn't collapse out from under him, Leon dropped to one knee at the edge of the hole in the floor, studying the next level. The vine hadn't just come up through _this_ floor – the hole it had made plunged down, down, down, at least six stories. Which meant climbing the vine was right out. Even if he weren't already leery of going anywhere near that oozing sap, there was no way they'd be able to make that climb safely, not in a hurry, and if one of them missed a handhold they weren't going to need to worry about _Birkin_ killing them.

"There!" It was a small ledge, part of the floor below that stuck out a little farther than the intact floor on this level, but accessible from where they were, and _stable_ , he could see the wall from the floor below it that supported the structure. Better, there was a set of shelves anchored to the wall there – not an easy climb, but better than jumping and praying they stuck the landing. "You…"

"You're going first," Ada said flatly. "You're injured, it will take you longer to climb, and if we have to you can catch me once you're down there, and we _don't have time to argue_."

And she was right. Leon swallowed down a deep-seated urge to argue anyway – he was a cop, it was his responsibility to cover for her – and went prone, making certain his arms were well-braced against the floor before he swung his legs over the edge and down.

For one heart-stopping second his vision went completely _white_ with pain, and he felt his left arm falter as the strain shot through every torn and bruised muscle in his shoulder and stabbed straight into the bones.

Leon tensed his right arm to compensate – and he was going to _feel_ that tomorrow – and forced himself to breathe through the pain as he felt around with his feet, trying to find those shelves.

Nothing. Gritting his teeth and reminding himself to _keep breathing_ , Leon carefully shifted his left arm and then slowly began to lower himself down, inch by inch.

 _Clunk_.

Leon didn't have the leeway to sigh in relief, as he carefully lowered himself just a little more – enough to put a little weight on his foot as he slid it along the shelf, and then pressed down and pushed, trying to get a sense of how solidly it was anchored. It didn't wobble in the slightest, although he did hear an uneasy _creak_ as he risked shifting more weight onto that foot, the shelves protesting taking far more weight than they were meant for. But it _held_ , and continued to hold as he gritted his teeth and used that foothold to take a bit of the strain off his arms as he lowered himself further, until the searching toe of his other foot bumped against the next shelf.

Good. Now came the hard part.

Forcing himself to block out everything – the endless scream of the alarms, the constantly looping drone of the recording, the hammering of his heart pounding out the seconds in double-time and _had he taken too long already, how long would it take Birkin to recover, he had to_ move – Leon glanced down.

 _Oh, thank God_.

He'd actually _missed_ the top of the case entirely, his first foot coming down on the uppermost of the shelves. And he still had enough flex in his arms to walk himself another precious level down, until his arms were fully extended and he was holding onto the floor above by finger strength alone, his feet planted not quite halfway down the length of the shelves.

 _Here we go_.

Drawing in a deep breath to brace himself, he let go with his right hand. His left immediately screamed protest at taking the lion's share of his weight – but it wasn't as bad as before; an extended arm put less strain on the muscles than trying to keep your arm bent at the same time. It was enough for him to reach down and latch onto the top of the shelves with his right hand.

Then he let go with his left.

He almost lost his grip with his right hand, as his full weight suddenly came down and he was suddenly trying to support his full weight with nothing he could actually _grip_ properly but a flat, smooth surface, and he missed his first grab with his numbed left, saving himself from falling by leaning forward far enough that he almost brained himself against the wall. And he definitely heard something _crack_ in the shelves.

But they held, and now all he had to do was clamber down. Easier said than done, shelves weren't like ladders, they weren't really meant for _climbing_ …

Heard from underneath, Birkin's footfalls as he stepped out onto the compromised floor of the conference room were as loud as thunder.

 _Screw it._

Leon let go of the shelves, kicking off with his feet as he went. He'd climbed far enough down that the landing was jarring, but he was still able to land on his _feet_ and that was what mattered-

Something lunged out of the darkness at him, and his gun was back in his hands and firing before he even thought about it.

He might not ever be a good _cop_ again, what with reflexively aiming for the head. But he thought his old instructor would be impressed at how his marksmanship had improved in just a few hours.

She would not, however, be impressed with the way he all but threw the weapon back into its holster, re-engaging the safety more by muscle memory than intent. "Ada!" he called, taking one wary step closer to the edge of the broken floor on the new level and keeping one eye on his surroundings for any more would-be trouble lying in wait. "I'm down! Jump – I'll catch you!" Because there was no way in _hell_ she was going to manage that climb, with Birkin already advancing.

Barely visible over the lip of the broken floor, Ada glanced over her shoulder without breaking her steady aim in the direction of the door above.

And smiled.

Leon's stomach twisted. "Ada, what are you…"

"Don't overreach yourself," she said lightly. "You have those two girls to look after. Let me worry about myself."

He almost spluttered. "Are you _crazy_?" Because she certainly wasn't suicidal, he knew that…

Ada winked, and held up a familiar grenade. "Don't worry. I _do_ have my own escape planned." For just a moment, her smirk softened. "After all – I still owe you one."

 _What – when did she…?_

Then another of those too-human _roars_ sounded from far too close – and she darted _forward_. Out of sight. And straight towards it.

"Ada!"

Leon started to lunge forward, only to stop, mentally cursing. He'd barely made it down; there was no way he'd be able to climb back up. Definitely not in time to intervene.

 _She planned that._

Overhead, Birkin roared again, there was the sharp retort of a gunshot… and then the footsteps shifted. Moving _away_ from the shattered rent in the floor.

Leon drew in a deep breath. Made himself hold it for a long minute. Then let it go, pulling his gun out of his holster.

 _You'd better get away, Ada._

Bracing himself, Leon shifted his attention to the shadows of the broken room he'd reached, and the door leading to the hallway, and started forward.

And all the while, the female voice of the alarm system kept repeating, in that near-monotone drone, " _All employees proceed to the bottom platform. Repeat, all employees…_ "

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

" _…proceed to the bottom platform_."

Ada hit the half-open door with her shoulder, desperately grateful that she and Leon had been moving too fast to close the doors behind them. It was the one aspect of this situation that made what she was doing _reckless_ , rather than flat-out suicidal. All she had to worry about was pacing herself _just so_. Which meant pausing for a heart-stopping half-breath, making certain that the monster William Birkin had become knew where she was and was still following before darting onwards, trying desperately to also stay far enough ahead that he wouldn't be able to reach her, and praying that he couldn't move any faster than that heavy, lumbering walk.

She'd already miscalculated once, and it was nothing but blind luck that the glancing blow off her back had thrown her _towards_ escape rather than away, and that she'd been able to roll with the fall and come up running.

And that he'd hit her with the _back_ of his… hand, rather than the talons. Even if those massive claws hadn't eviscerated her… she did _not_ trust that this particular viral strain wouldn't be infectious. And she didn't want to risk any open wounds, out of the immediate area of the labs or not.

" _All employees_ …"

Stone shattered behind her – Birkin had just hammered his way past a doorway that had never been intended to permit something that size or shape through it. And Ada started running again, calculating distances and angles as she went. This was going to be tricky.

" _…peat, all employees proceed to the…_ "

She was gambling, and she knew it. But she knew the way the wealthy and over-privileged worked. After all, she made her living on them.

If the bottom platform was where the hoi polloi were supposed to make their escape in an emergency… that was a very long way down.

 _The top executives, the fat cats of the company… they'll have had their own escape route._

And between the pauses as they made their way through the facility, and hacking the security system… she'd had plenty of time to figure out _exactly_ where those were.

 _Not enough time to poke around in the executive offices, though. More's the pity._

She didn't feel quite as irritated by that as she really should. Though it would have been nice to have additional leverage while she demanded freaking _hazard pay_ from her employer for this mess.

The next turn brought the door leading out into the shaft and the central hub of the security center into view. Setting her jaw, Ada picked up the pace. They'd gone far enough that she didn't think Birkin would try doubling back to go after Leon on her, and if he did the cop would be long gone anyway. Or had _better_ be.

And if she was going to pull this off, she'd need a bit more lead time.

 _"…proceed to the bottom platform. Repeat…_ "

The catwalk clanged underfoot in a way that made trained instincts cringe – but right now, speed mattered over stealth. She only slowed as she reached the security hub in the center – and that because she had to corner, _hard_ , turning sharply to come out on the third walkway, the one that none of them had explored so far.

 _Although why they needed a completely separate wing for the executives… long-lost cousins of Bloody Stupid Johnson, indeed._

Or more likely, the higher-ups of Umbrella hadn't wanted to be too close to the experimental labs – or the cargo coming in from Irons's shuttle. Which actually showed a certain level of sense.

Now for the biggest gamble. Coming to a halt in front of the locked door, Ada pulled the security access card out of her card, one finger through the loop meant to attach it to a keychain or similar device to ensure that it wouldn't be lost in the shaft if she fumbled it, and ran it through the reader next to the door.

For a heart-stopping half-second, the reader didn't respond, and _yes_ Ada was holding her breath, because if this didn't work, she'd have to turn about and pray that she could reach Irons's shuttle and get it going the other direction before Birkin caught her – and that the shuttle would carry her far enough and fast enough to be out of the reach of the aftermath when Umbrella's hidden lab imploded. And while a security access card _should_ allow her through, given what Leon had said about the way security was arranged down here she couldn't count on that…

With a soft _beep_ nearly inaudible under the rushing wind of the shaft and the scream of the alarms bouncing back and forth from the curved walls, the light turned green and the door slid open.

White eyes and a gaping mouth lunged.

 _Damn, can't believe I actually forgot_ …

Ada backed up quickly, trusting her own excellent spatial memory to keep her from running into the inadequate security railing as she forced herself to level the handgun – _remember, it's stronger, be ready for the recoil_ – aim, and fire.

The first zombie went down, a neat hole between the eyes. The second…

 _Blast. Missed the killshot_ , Ada thought distantly, seeing white bone flash where the bullet had ricocheted off of the skull. Scowling, she retreated another step and centered herself, a half-moment before the zombie lunged-

A solid heel-strike to the temple wasn't likely to stun a zombie, not the way the move was intended to work. But on the narrow catwalk, it was more than enough to throw the zombie off balance – and, more importantly, over the railing.

 _Well. That self-defense course was worth the entry fees after all._

Nothing else was lunging out of the darkness at her. Which meant she should still have time to set this up.

Keeping half an eye on the open door, just in case the situation changed, Ada looked down through the open grating of the catwalk, studying the supports that anchored it to the wall of the shaft.

 _Excellent. This should work_. Thank goodness for subcontractors and the eternal corporate game of cutting costs by cutting corners wherever one could.

The sound of something massive breaking through stone and metal echoed across the platform. Drawing in a deep breath, Ada holstered her gun and gripped the grenade firmly in her newly freed right hand as she turned.

The walkway wasn't designed for anything Birkin's size or weight. She could see the bolts and joins of the frame flexing and straining as he slowly moved out into the shaft chamber. He staggered slightly as the wind hit him, and for a moment she wondered if those ridiculously top-heavy limbs would end up solving her problem for her – but the smaller arms clamped down onto the railing, visibly bending them but stabilizing the massive frame before slowly twisting in place, that strange head clearly unable to turn normally to look around.

Then again, he didn't have to look far to find her.

Impishly, Ada waved. And then blew him a kiss.

Well. He did appear to at least recognize a taunt when he saw one. With another of those furious roars, he reared up and back…

And _jumped_.

Ada could feel her eyes widen in shock as the mutated scientist all but _flew_ across the open space between the catwalks, hurtling through the howling wind like some sort of organic cannonball, and slammed into the catwalk she was standing on with enough force that the aftershock itself nearly sent her tumbling over the railing and into open space.

 _Well. Good thing he did that_ first _._

The half-dizzy thought snapped her back into focus. Straightening, Ada eyed the monster as it slowly uncurled from its landing crouch, and smirked.

"Claire said she'd shoved a grenade down your throat," she mused. "Well. You're a scientist. Results don't count unless you reproduce them, yes?"

She yanked the pin out – and then reached out and gently tossed the grenade _down_ , bouncing it off the wall so that it came to a stop nestled in the supports of the catwalk.

" _Enjoy the fall_ ," she said sweetly, and ducked through the open door, slamming her hand against the emergency lock and praying it would shut in time.

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

The sound of the explosion filled the corridor, loud enough that Claire half-expected to be slammed into the by the sheer force of the sound waves alone. Even so, she could hear the high _ping-ping_ of shrapnel striking metal, and even saw a white scar suddenly appear on stone facing the turn in the corridor where a stray piece had apparently shot all the way back up.

 _And the movies want you to believe that just ducking behind a couch would save you from that. Right_.

Drawing in a deep breath, she squared her shoulders, and then rounded the corner, coming down onto one knee for stability as she aimed the gun down the hallway.

The zombies clustered beside the industrial door at the far end slowly turned dead eyes around to face her, the low moaning suddenly rising in volume as they began shambling forward in one great mass, completely ignoring the remains of two zombies that had been blown to pieces by the grenade.

 _Concentrate. It's just like a haunted house arcade game_.

Several of the zombies were falling behind, legs shattered or shredded by the shrapnel and unable to keep pace. Claire ignored them, focusing only on picking off the first row of zombies and trying desperately to ignore the strange mix of naked, decomposing older zombies with fresher ones wearing lab coats and uniforms. Keeping her breathing even, she lined up each shot carefully-

 _And, hey, crowd like this, it's actually harder to_ miss _…_

-and fired whenever she was sure of her aim. By now, the gun felt like an extension of her own arm – and every zombie she dropped was one more obstacle that slowed the others down, a barricade made of twitching limbs and bodies and at this point her brain was probably exporting nightmare material because she had _such_ an excess of it.

 _At least that means my nightmares probably won't get boring anytime soon._

 _Click. Click._ Damn, out of ammo. Her hands were already moving, ejecting the spent clip and snapping another into place, and…

Oh. Out of targets.

Slowly, Claire lowered the handgun as she rose back up to standing again. She didn't _hear_ any more moaning, and… well, with the endless white noise of the alarms echoing through the corridors, she wouldn't hear something moving until it walked into her.

" _All employees, proceed…_ "

"Sherry?" she called, pitching her voice just loud enough to be heard over the automated message.

The girl glanced down from where she'd been keeping watch on the elevator door, just in case someone followed them (or some _thing_ ), and then quickly trotted down the hallway to join Claire again.

Getting through the corpse-clogged corridor to the door was… interesting, Claire had to admit. Especially the point about halfway down, where they'd come into the range where her aim had been good enough to drop three or four in one place. Trying not to look too closely at the bodies, Claire drew in a deep breath – quickly regretting it, when the sickly smell of rotting flesh came rushing in thick enough to coat the back of her mouth and throat with miasma, she hadn't considered _that_ aspect of so many zombies crammed in together – and picked her way through the tangle. After that, it got easier, and she was able to skirt around the bodies rather than forced to go through them-

 _Chomp_.

Claire yelped, kicking reflexively as she jumped away from the teeth that had latched onto the heavy leather of her boot, skidding off the metal reinforcements and leaving scrape marks in the finish.

 _Oh God. That thing's still… alive? Sort of?_

The zombie was mostly in pieces, legs completely gone and arms bloody giblets hanging off broken bones. But the head was intact, teeth clacking furiously as it tried to get closer to her despite the complete lack of limbs.

In a movie, the effect might have been comedic. In real life… fighting to keep her breathing even, Claire aimed the gun and pulled the trigger, feeling an odd sense of relief as the zombie went slack. Technically, it might have been a waste of ammunition – that zombie wasn't exactly a serious threat anymore. But she couldn't make herself leave _anything_ like that.

 _At least that's one less problem for Leon to have to deal with_. Given that he and Ada were going to have to make it all the way down here with the alarms shrieking in their ears every step of the way? They'd be in a hurry. They might get a little careless.

Shaking her shoulders loose again, Claire turned back to the door. "What do you think?"

And didn't it just sum up the whole _mess_ of a situation that Sherry hadn't even blinked at Claire more or less executing a fallen zombie? She'd just kept going while Claire dealt with it. Now she was standing by the door, both hands pressed against it and brow furrowed in a ridiculously cute scowl of concentration while her tentacles poked inquisitively at reinforced metal.

After a moment, the girl shook her head slightly and pulled back from the door. "I don't _think_ there are any zombies," she said carefully. "At least… not close to the door?"

Claire nodded. "Okay. Get clear, I'm going to open it up."

Sherry shifted back a few steps, taking up what had somehow become her preferred spot a step or two behind Claire and a half-step to her left. Glancing around, Claire spotted the switch for the door and slapped it, praying the thing wasn't locked – she didn't know how much energy she had left at this point, and they still needed to get _into_ one of the shuttles-

The _reek_ as the door opened caught her completely by surprise – as did her stomach's momentary attempt at rebellion. She'd half-thought it didn't remember _how_ to do that anymore.

"What on…" she started, coughing as her left arm came up reflexively to cover her mouth and nose.

Then she saw what was on the other side of the door.

 _…Oh._

Trying to breathe through her mouth as much as possible – which was not helping _nearly_ as much as she wanted it to – Claire gingerly stepped through the door, Sherry following right on her heels, the girl trying desperately to keep her position but nevertheless drifting closer and closer with every step as they picked their way past crumpled bodies. After a moment, the door rattled closed behind them.

" _…platform. Repeat, all employees…_ "

Most of the corpses were the older type – the ones who'd been _test subjects_ , locked down in the depths of the labs for who knew how long. Death clearly hadn't improved them. The flesh was actually sliding _off_ some of them, showing the gleam of bone underneath – and even that seemed warped, distorted, as if the virus had gotten all the way into the marrow and collagen. Others were more recent, dressed in lab coats or uniforms like the crowd she'd cleared out of the hallway just a minute ago, but even those had decayed to the point that she couldn't really tell men and women apart unless she looked at their clothing.

Except for one.

At the far end of the platform, where stairs led down to the main shuttle area, a big man still wearing what looked like a security officer's uniform was sitting slumped against the railing. Lying on the floor nearby was a military-grade machine gun, its magazine completely empty. His body was partially propped against a freaking _rocket launcher_ , armed but unfired, his left arm draped across it and an empty pistol lying on the grating where it had fallen from a slack hand.

The man's face was surprisingly peaceful. Even with the blood splattered across cheek and nose from the hole in the side of his skull where he'd shot himself.

She didn't have to look far to see why, either – not with his right arm blackened and rotting the same way the zombies had been, although apparently death had stopped the virus from progressing any farther.

Sherry tugged at Claire's hand. "Are you okay?" she asked quietly, small face worried.

Right. Claire drew in a deep breath, hollowing her cheeks so that her lungs had to pull a little harder for the air, and then forcefully exhaled through her nostrils. "Close enough," she said honestly, and carefully stepped past the dead man to look out over shuttle pad.

For just a moment, she felt like she'd been punched.

Despite the insanity of the whole setup – who put a _shuttle pad_ at the _bottom_ of an underground facility? – the area was neatly laid out. Over there was the entry zone, where an incoming shuttle could land and unload its cargo. The center was dedicated to refueling and maintenance, with the far end arranged for outgoing shuttles to take off. A sensible arrangement, given that the shuttles had to pass through a flight shaft to reach the surface – no room for incoming and outgoing shuttles to maneuver around each other. Not to mention, it was probably that much easier to hide what was going on, if you didn't have all your traffic passing through the same area.

Every single one of the outgoing bays had a shuttle in it. Not a single one was empty.

 _No one made it out._ The thought seemed to echo in her head, strangely clear against the ringing in her ears that managed to down out even the incessant alarm. _God. They got all this way, despite everything… and no one made it out_.

Odd. More than anything… she found herself praying that the dead man hadn't known. That he'd killed himself with the comforting thought that his friends had escaped.

Then she squared her shoulders and checked her handgun, letting the familiarity of the process help calm her. If no one had made it out – then there were more zombies down below in the shuttle area.

 _More accurately, I'd better_ hope _there are more_ , she admitted to herself grimly. Because if not, then something was wrong with the _shuttles_ , and they were screwed beyond recall.

Sherry pressed close against Claire's side, studying the man's face, and Claire wondered if she should maybe try to hide the girl's eyes, turn her away. But… it was too late to keep her from seeing it. And when Sherry looked up, her face was sad rather than horrified.

"He was brave, wasn't he?" she asked quietly.

Claire gave the small hand that had slipped into her own a slight squeeze. "Yeah," she admitted.

Sherry wrapped her free arm around Claire's leg, her tentacles joining in the hug as the girl hid her face for just a moment. "I don't want to have to be that kind of brave. I don't want _anyone_ to have to," she mumbled, the words barely audible.

It wasn't funny by any stretch of the term, but Claire still felt a reluctant smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Freeing her hand, she ruffled Sherry's hair. "That makes two of us, honey," she admitted. "Come on. Let's go find a shuttle."

A soft sniff betrayed just how upset Sherry actually was – but after a moment, the girl squared her shoulders and pulled back again, although it took a moment for her tentacles to follow suit, and one hand still clung to the hem of Claire's shorts, as if worried that if she let go, Claire would vanish. "Okay."

Claire led the way down the stairs, reflexively softening each step she took to minimize the _clang_ of boot against metal, even if the blaring alarms echoing across the hangar would have covered any sound she made. As they descended, she scanned the waiting shuttles, lined up in their loading docks with ramps down, waiting for cargo.

The doors to the cargo bay on the first shuttle in the line-up, nearest the stairs, stood wide open..

For a moment, Claire hesitated. If the doors were open and the shuttle was still here, then _something_ must have gone wrong, and they were better off finding a different shuttle for their ride out. But…

Reaching the hangar floor, Claire squared her shoulders and headed for the ramp and those open, ominous doors. _We need more information_.

The cargo area was eerily empty, without any boxes or crates meant for shipment off-planet, and Claire found herself wondering if the hidden facility even did that sort of thing. She supposed it would make a certain amount of sense if they didn't. This was a research facility – they needed supplies, and plenty of them, but any products resulting from their research would have to be produced and shipped out from somewhere else entirely. If only because anything sold for the market or the military would need to be subjected to _safety inspections_ occasionally.

So maybe the lack of cargo wasn't ominous. But…

A dark splotch near the ladder leading up to the operations and crew quarters section caught her eye. Grip tightening on her gun, Claire crossed the room to take a closer look, footsteps echoing back from bare walls.

After the evening she'd had, she knew dried blood when she saw it – small spots dripped on the floor, and scattered smears on the ladder.

 _Oh_.

She took an involuntary step back, feeling sick. She had the ugly feeling that she knew _exactly_ why the shuttle hadn't taken off, now. And absolutely no inclination to climb up there and confirm her suspicions.

Except… as she was turning around to head for the open doors and leave that bloody ladder behind, a sudden thought poked at her.

 _Why the cockpit?_

If the last survivor had been infected, there wasn't any _reason_ to climb all the way up there. Granted, people in a panic and desperate weren't always logical, but… the big man on the platform had been buying time. And she hadn't seen any other zombies down here, dead or otherwise; the two had probably been bitten at the same time. If that was the case, why hadn't they made their last stand together? Surely that would have been better than running off into the shuttle to die alone.

 _Maybe he wasn't bitten. Maybe it was a cut, or – or a bloody nose, or_ …

"Claire?" Sherry asked curiously, blinking up at her. The girl had relaxed a bit, but she was still staying very close. From the way her hair was barely stirring now, and her tentacles had furled in against her back, Claire suspected Sherry was on the last dregs of her energy. "Aren't we…?"

The door to the cockpit _thumped_. And then thumped again. And again, in a painfully familiar rhythm.

For just a moment, Claire had to close her eyes, startled by the urge to cry. Like an idiot, she'd let herself get her hopes up.

Except that now she'd circled right back around to the same question. If they'd both been bitten, why had one person stayed at the platform to buy time while the other one went to the shuttles…?

 _They had a plan._

Huffing quietly, Claire squared her shoulders and turned back to the ladder and the door. "I think we need to find out what they were doing up there," she said.

Sherry blinked, but didn't argue, following Claire to the ladder and then startling her by swarming up the rungs first, hands and feet moving with the easy confidence of a kid who'd probably spent far too much time on the monkey bars _before_ she'd picked up four extra limbs to help her along. Shaking her head slightly, Claire followed a little slower – in part because an atavistic part of her refused to touch those bloody smears. Which was silly. If you could be infected by blood alone, well, she'd gotten hit by enough blow-back that she was probably screwed at this point.

Um.

 _No, think. The virus takes over in less than an hour. If you could get infected that way, I'd_ already _be a zombie at this point. So there._

Still. Everyone was going to have to disinfect themselves _thoroughly_ before they risked going into an inhabited area again.

By the time she reached the top, Sherry had already positioned herself by the door, ready to smack the controls while standing well clear of the opening. Smiling wryly – at least they'd gotten this down to a science – Claire checked her position so that she wouldn't back off the landing if she had to move, readied her gun, and nodded.

As it turned out, dealing with the zombie was flat-out _easy_. The door opened just as it was stepping forward again, and momentum carried it straight forward to thump against the railing. One shot to the back of the head, and it toppled forward over the railing to smash headfirst into the cargo floor below.

Shaking her hand slightly – it was starting to ache after shooting so much – Claire stepped through the door, moving towards the cockpit-

And froze.

All along the short, narrow corridor, wall and floor panels had been pulled free, wires a tangled mess where they'd been yanked loose and then reconnected in odd places. Tools were scattered carelessly across the floor in a jumble that would have made anyone who knew the first thing about engineering cry, or more likely burst out swearing. And once she'd picked her way past, trying to ignore the ominous low hum with a teeth-on-edge dissonance to it that pure instinct alone said meant _something_ was very, very wrong, and made her way to the cockpit…

That was a _lot_ of red lights.

 _Warning: Risk of overheating_ , read some. _Warning: navigational controls offline_. _Warning: locational sensors disabled._

And, most terrifying of all: _WARNING: FUSION SUPPRESSION SYSTEM DEACTIVATED._

 _Oh God_. Claire swallowed _hard_. She'd read about some of the early accidents, back when fusion engines were still a borderline technology meant for military daredevils who didn't necessarily count on coming back.

 _They were going to turn the shuttle into a bomb. To destroy the whole facility_.

 _Why_? Yes, they apparently were the last of whatever group of survivors had fought their way down this far – but there was a whole facility… there could have been people hiding, secretaries who'd managed to shut the door in time, researchers who'd been so deep in their own labs that they hadn't even noticed the chaos going on outside, engineers who'd been up on walkways and out of reach…

" _Warning_ ," the woman's recorded monotone droned on, a little bit muffled in here but the words still audible. " _All employees, proceed…_ "

 _No one's come._

Granted, she'd only been through two wings of the facility. And after they'd left the Birkins' lab, they'd been careful to stick to the most direct path possible – they hadn't exactly gone exploring.

But she hadn't seen a single living – well, non-infected, at least – person down here, other than their little troupe of four, plus Annette.

 _No one survived?_ No _one?_

For a moment, she felt like the deck of the shuttle was swaying under her feet – and then she forcefully shook herself. The shuttle had been rigged to trigger an out-of-control fusion explosion the minute the engines fully engaged – but apparently, the engineer had turned before actually activating the system itself. It wasn't going to go off on its own.

Still. "I think we need to use a different shuttle," she said ruefully.

Sherry blinked, glancing around at the mess and the red lights. For just a moment, her face screwed up in intense concentration, and then…

"Darn!"

For just a moment, she glanced quickly at Claire, checking her reaction.

Giggling was… probably not really appropriate. And said more about Claire's stress levels than anything else, even if Sherry's half-guilty, half-triumphant expression was truly adorable.

Reaching out, she ruffled the girl's hair. "Good use of context-appropriate swearing," she said, adding a grin and a wink for good measure. "Come on. Leon and Ada should be getting here soon."

 _They'd better be…_

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

He was moving almost before the doors of the elevator were fully open, dodging through them and hitting the hallway at a flat run.

 _At least there aren't a lot of ways to get lost down here._

Which was a distinct relief. Between starting from a different point than planned, and the fact that he'd only had Ada's verbal report… it had taken a bit of exploring and far, far too much time for comfort before he'd finally found the neon orange taped arrows marking the way.

Although down here, even if there hadn't clearly been only one way to go, his odds of getting lost were slim. The fallen zombies were a pretty good trail marker.

Leon darted through the bodies, sparing them only enough attention to be certain they were actually _down_ and to ensure that he didn't catch his foot on an out-flung limb – Claire must have used her grenade, going by the carnage, some of the zombies were in _pieces_ – and quickly hit the controls for the door, ducking through as soon as the opening was high enough to allow him.

Zombie corpses scattered across a platform, another corpse in the uniform of a security guard slumped by the stairs – beyond the platform, the open cavern of an underground hangar, and he _still_ didn't know what had possessed Umbrella to arrange things this way-

"Leon!"

And there was Claire, waving one arm over her head from where she'd just emerged from an open shuttle. Next to her, Sherry was bouncing up and down, waving both arms wildly – which made for a very interesting visual effect as all four of her tentacles got in on the gesture.

Leon grabbed the railing of the platform and just… _stopped_ , for a moment, reminding his legs that they weren't finished yet. After that long run alone through the facility… it was _good_ to see a friendly face again.

Claire met him at the bottom of the stairs, face worried. "Ada?" she asked, eyes flicking up towards the door that was barely visible through the grating, as though expecting the woman to come through after him.

"We ran into Birkin on our way down," he admitted. "She made sure I couldn't follow, and then led him off in a different direction."

Claire visibly winced. "Then she's…?"

"I don't think so," he said firmly. "She said something about having her own escape. And she wouldn't have done that without a plan." And maybe it was hopelessly naïve and optimistic of him, but he intended to assume the best until proven otherwise.

Although he was glad neither of them seemed inclined to ask him about whether he'd seen Annette. As it happened… he had. What was left, anyway.

At least it had been quick. He was pretty certain she hadn't even felt anything.

He would have to break it to Sherry, though. _Later_ , when they were clear of everything and the girl could have the time she deserved and _needed_ to scream and cry and hit things. For now…

Leon squared his shoulders. "It's just us now. We should get out of here while we still can."

"Not that one," Claire said, grabbing his left arm lightly when he started to make for the open shuttle. "A couple survivors made it down here, but they'd been bitten. I think… I think they meant to blow the fusion engine. To take the zombies and the rest of the facility out with them."

Leon couldn't help the sharp breath he drew in, or the uneasy way he rocked back on his heels for a moment, out of an atavistic if pointless desire to put a little more distance between himself and the rigged shuttle. It wasn't exactly every day that you realized you were standing next to the equivalent of a small hydrogen bomb, after all. "…Ah," he managed, before clearing his throat. "Let's take a different shuttle, then-"

Something shook the walls around them, the deep shudders of stone accompanied by a low noise more felt than heard as it rippled through the air.

" _Five minutes until detonation_ ," the recorded voice said dispassionately. " _Proceed with all haste to_ …"

"Five… _five minutes_?" Claire demanded, sheer angry disbelief enough to turn the two simple words into a profanity. "How is _anyone_ supposed to get away with only five minutes left? What kind of security system _is_ this?"

"A very paranoid one," Leon replied, grimly amused even as his heart pounded in his ears. "We need to go _now_."

They'd only just started to run, however, when another, different crash overhead sent rock dust and broken shards pattering down around them.

"Wait!" Sherry had grabbed onto them with hands and tentacles both, stumbling as their momentum dragged her forward. "Something's about to…!"

In a thunderous hail of broken stone, Birkin crashed down onto the hangar floor.

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

Claire stumbled back, reflexively bringing her arms up to shield her face from flying rubble.

The four-armed _thing_ that had been William Birkin was a bloody, broken mess. Its head was nothing more than a mangled stub of bone and flesh. The side of its chest had collapsed inwards, both of the massive striking arms gone slack and twisted in a way that could only mean shattered bones.

All in all, the monster looked like it had landed on its head after a very, very long fall.

Slowly lowering her arm, she stared, not quite convinced that she was actually seeing what was in front of her. "Is it… Is he dead?" she murmured, without thinking.

Later, she'd kick herself for that. She _liked_ horror games – she knew how this scene always, always played out.

Which didn't stop the gut-wrenching shock as the thing suddenly spasmed… and then began to clumsily stumble to its feet.

Attempted to, anyway. Shattered bones caved under its sheer weight, as the legs flopped uselessly, as though the tendons had snapped or been torn loose.

Then, horribly, the masses of muscle began to _writhe_ , new flesh seeming to uncoil from _nowhere_ both under and over its skin as the gaping maw of daggerlike ribs in its chest opened and wider and wider, blood splurting from _new_ gashes that opened up as those arms twisted about, coming forward and down with the crackle of dislocating limbs.

"Oh God," Leon breathed. "Didn't Annette say something about the virus he used to inject himself being an attempt to isolate the enhanced healing?"

Claire struggled to swallow through a suddenly painfully dry throat. "Except… it doesn't know what it's supposed to be going _back_ to. It just keeps mutating more and more, every time it gets hurt enough…"

How did you _stop_ something like that?

Leon's hand closed on her shoulder, for just a moment. "Claire. Can you buy us a minute or two?"

 _We don't have a minute!_ she wanted to scream. Intellectually, she knew it had only been a few seconds since the five-minute warning had gone off, but five minutes was _already_ not enough time-

Then she caught Leon's quick glance at the open shuttle behind them, with its rigged engine, and realized what he was planning.

"You'd better leave us enough clearance to get out first," she warned him, firming her grip on her gun and raising it.

"Planning on it," he said, and then he was sprinting for the ramp.

Claire took a deep breath. "Sherry," she said quietly. "Get to the shuttles. Try to find one without any zombies in it. Look for instructions on how to warm it up. We'll be right behind you."

She could _hear_ the girl swallowing nervously. "G-got it," she whispered.

Claire nodded once, and then turned away, focusing on the twisted creature that was just picking itself out of the rubble. Now there really was nothing human at all about it, crouched low on four legs almost like a bulldog, with the hind legs lower and smaller than the heavyset front. Only where a dog's head would be, those gaping rib-teeth rattled against each other around a bloody red maw.

"Alright, you," she breathed. "Time to settle things…"

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

 _Oh, this is such a bad idea_.

Not a surprise. The whole evening had been nothing _but_ bad ideas.

 _Better a bad idea than a worse one_. Leon launched himself off the ladder and through the door, barely dodging the hole where a floor panel had been pried up to allow access to – a coolant conduit. Maybe.

Leon would be the first to admit that he wouldn't know where to even _start_ on something like this. Fusion engines were designed to be near-unbreakable. There'd been a few too many terrorists and saboteurs who'd pulled this exact trick for them to be anything but.

But he did know enough to see that whoever had rewired the systems _had_ known what they were doing. Enough to get this far, racing against time with an active zombie infection – and determined enough to _keep going_ , right up until they turned.

 _Now we just have to hope they managed to get far_ enough _,_ he thought, bursting into the small space of the cockpit.

Something crashed outside. Swallowing, Leon forced himself to close his ears to it and focus on the displays. If the security officer had been messing with the engines, they should have had…

 _There!_

Twisting, he leaned over the system diagnostic, quickly flicking through the displays. _This_ , he knew how to do. Even a rookie beat cop had to know how to work through a system's readouts, to check for signs of foul play while the evidence was still hot, or to verify whether someone actually _meant_ it when they insisted, "Th' controls weren't working, Occifer, honest! …hic!"

And this was the key. If the dead engineer had meant to simply manually trigger the fusion reaction, there wasn't anything Leon could do. Even if he could finish the job, it would be suicide, and he was _not_ ready to give up. He'd have to abandon the plan and pray that, evidence to the contrary, the collapse of the facility would be sufficient to put Birkin down for good.

But… They'd been infected. They'd _known_ it. And fusion engines were designed to be near-impossible to activate manually. Which meant the simplest way to trigger the engine would be…

The blazing red _WARNING_ signs shouldn't have been a relief. Not when each and every one was overlaid by a white _OVERRIDDEN_. But it was.

This, he could handle.

Leon began putting in the commands. It wasn't hard. The engineer had gotten all the way to the final step before succumbing to the virus. All he had to do was introduce one little modification.

And hope he got the timing right.

 _Activate engine start-up in four minutes-_

The scream of crashing metal outside almost deafened him.

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

Claire rolled and came up to her feet, gasping for air – as much from alarm as actual fatigue, although there was enough of the latter that she'd be worried, if she weren't so very _busy_ …

And stared.

The wild charge she'd only barely managed to dodge had carried the monster across the length of the hangar, to slam into one of the waiting shuttles. A shuttle that was now over on its side, sparks spitting from a long gash running the length of the underside.

On a _shuttle_. With a shell meant to deflect space debris that could make bullets look slow and harmless.

"Sherry?" she called, already shifting her position as the creature shook off the impact and began slowly to turn back in her direction. Thus far, she'd managed to keep him busy; every charge meant that much time for it to recover and turn, rather than trying to close in and engage with those horrible teeth-ribs. So long as she could keep dodging. But if it could do _that_ to a shuttle…

 _Just stalling him isn't enough_ , she realized, the thought sending ice down her spine. _We have to put him_ down _. At least temporarily. Or there's no way we'll be able to get out of here!_

"I'm okay!" Sherry shouted back, from… Claire wasn't sure where. The shuttles, but not down at the far end. "Hang on, I'll…"

"Stay there!" Claire yelled. The monster had paused, the massive… head, if that was what you could call the bristling maw that took up the circumference of its body, tilting back and forth, as if trying to locate them by sound alone.

Narrowing her eyes, Claire fired off three quick shots.

One flew wide – no surprise, her hands had gone numb around the gun, and some part of her was grimly amazed that she was even still capable of pulling the trigger at all. Another ricocheted off those clattering teeth, and she distantly heard a _spang_ as it struck metal somewhere.

But one got lucky, plunging past sharp-edged white into the bloody red maw.

Not a fatal strike. But enough to get the monster's _attention_ , and it roared in fury as it swung back around to focus on Claire alone.

"Yeah," she muttered, feeling cold sweat running down her face. "You stay on _me_ , you monster." She balanced on the balls of her feet, ready to leap out of the way again.

And prayed she could think of something that would actually _stop_ this thing rather than just distracting it, or else all of them were screwed…

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

 _:Flying metal-bits not_ enough _!:_

 _I know!_ Sherry thought back in frustration, otherwise ignoring the weird _other_ -feeling in the back of her head as she leaned a little farther out, desperately looking up and down the hangar at the same time that she was watching the monster – _Dad_ – start another one of those terrifying full-speed charges at Claire, who looked so _tiny_ out there against it.

Surely there was something she could do. There _had_ to be something. There was _always_ something! A piece of equipment, or a crane with something she could drop on the monster, or – or a big gun. Although she'd looked, and the shuttle didn't have anything like that, which was stupid. Okay, yeah, movies lied all the times, but shouldn't spaceships have lasers to shoot monsters and pirates and things? Or big bombs or rockets or…

Sherry froze, as that _other-mind_ grabbed onto the mental image – and brought up another one. _:This?:_

 _Yes!_

Only… how was she supposed to get to it? Claire had told her to _stay_ …

But if she stayed… Claire might die.

 _Nope_.

Bracing herself, Sherry slipped out and onto the ramp. Maybe if she ran _really_ fast, she could hide before the monster managed to turn around.

 _:Yes! Fast!:_ And then an odd moment of hesitation. _:…Trust?:_

That was fine. The _other_ in her head didn't want to see Claire or Leon hurt, either. "Okay," she whispered, and _ran_.

Every step seemed to make rippling circles, as she _:felt:_ everything around her – the bright-hard-heavy metal of the shuttles with _humming energy_ sleeping in their hearts, the _off_ -energy of the far one, stone and the monster and there was Claire and _there_ was that platform-

The world seemed to _twist_ , and suddenly _there_ was _here_ , and Sherry crashed into the railing before she managed to skid to a stop. Ow.

 _:Oops_. _:_

Although the feeling of gleeful giggling didn't exactly stop, because that had been _fun_ and they needed to do that again-

Only then Sherry saw the big huge gun that the brave man had died next to and dove down, pushing the dead man's arm off – which was creepy and icky and she wasn't going to think about it – and grabbing the gun off the floor.

 _…ow_. It was _heavy_. It took her both arms _and_ the tentacles anchoring themselves against the railing for her to actually straighten up, and there was no _way_ she was going to be able to carry this thing down the stairs, and they were in a _hurry_ …

 _Okay then_.

Gritting her teeth, Sherry staggered across to the railing overlooking the hangar. "Claire!" she yelled as loud as she could. "Use this!"

Whirling to get up enough momentum to clear the railing, she threw.

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

 _The rocket launcher! – oh no, Sherry,_ don't _-!_

Claire cornered hard, the monster momentarily – not forgotten, but not a priority as she desperately flung herself across the hangar.

 _It can't take that fall! It'll break – or worse, go off right under her…_

She wasn't going to make it. She knew that, even as the world seemed to shift into slow motion, gravity relentlessly pulling the weapon, their _one chance_ , down, down…

 _No!_

If she'd thought about it, she wouldn't have even tried. Claire's grandfather and her parents had been _relentless_ at training both of their children to know _exactly_ what their Quincy talents could do, and what their limits were, and how far they could push those limits, and she was nowhere _near_ Chris's weight class, and even _he_ didn't have the oomph to pull something like this off-

Her hand hit metal flooring with a _snarl_.

 _Get. Over. Here._

Then ten kilos or more of falling assault weapon landed in her hands with enough force to make her stumble and fall, knees hitting the floor with enough force that they should have been screaming in agony.

Maybe they were. It was hard to tell. Claire's head was splitting, she could feel a suspicious wetness slipping from her nose and taste the copper-iron tang of blood, and she couldn't see _anything_ , her vision was nothing but a blazing white haze of pain and her ears were ringing like old-style church bells from up close…

And someone's hands were steadying her, shifting her grip on the launcher and helping her bring it up onto her shoulder. "I'll aim," Leon said into her ear, his voice tinny and distant. "Just fire on my mark!"

Claire gulped, but let him turn her around and level the weapon. She might not be able to see or hear properly from the backlash, but kneeling the way she was, she could _feel_ the tremor in the floor that meant the monster was starting another charge-

"And… _now_!" Leon said.

Damn the migraine. Damn the blindness. Damn the ringing ears. She didn't _care_.

"You _lose_ ," she breathed.

There was less kick than she expected. But the choked roar cut off by an explosion was _so_ satisfying.

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

The launcher clattered to the floor as Claire went limp.

 _Damn_. Gritting his teeth, Leon draped her arm across his shoulders and wrapped his good arm around her waist as he straightened, pulling her up to her feet with him.

"Claire!" Sherry seemed to simply _blur_ into place in front of him, blue eyes huge. "Is she…"

"She'll be fine," he said, a little tersely. He hoped. He didn't like the blood running down from her nostrils, or the way a redhead's already fair skin had gone all but translucent. He didn't know the first thing about treating a Quincy's backlash reaction, other than the pop culture jokes about stuffing them with chocolate, and they'd already eaten Claire's emergency stash, and now was _not the time_. "We have to get to a shuttle, now!"

Sherry nodded briskly. "Right. This way!"

Leon forced himself to break into a slow jog after the girl, half-carrying, half-dragging Claire alongside. At least she wasn't completely out of it, slowly shuffling her feet in an effort to keep up and take a little bit of the weight off.

Off to the side was… it wasn't a roar. A moan, almost. If moaning were deep enough and loud enough to rumble straight through the stone, and filled with nothing but _pure rage_. Against his better judgement, Leon found himself glancing over his shoulder as he ran.

 _God_.

One thing to realize that Birkin's experiment had made him effectively immortal in all the wrong ways. Another entirely to see the splattered remains of a body that had taken a bunker-buster directly into the maw at nearly point-blank range… _twisting_ , muscles warping as long and fleshy tendrils began to unfurl from the center of mass, reaching out blindly in all directions. Any time they found another piece of the creature, they began to _absorb_ it, and where was all of that even coming from? The thing was already three times the size of any normal human, it couldn't possibly have generated that much mass from William alone…

Then he gritted his teeth and forced himself to turn away, pace picking up. They had to get out of here. They'd be _lucky_ if there were two minutes left on that countdown now.

The shuttle Sherry had led them to was a passenger shuttle, not a cargo one, he noted vaguely, as they stumbled up the ramp. Good. That meant the odds of their surviving this had just gotten incrementally better-

He dropped Claire into the first seat he found. "Strap her in, and yourself too," he told Sherry briskly, already running for the cockpit.

He was reaching for the controls almost before he hit the pilot's seat himself, muscle memory alone snapping the straps into place; he'd done the requisite training time on shuttle piloting, and he'd learned more helping his uncle out while he was growing up – this _should_ be doable…

…Huh. Well. Apparently, Umbrella _had_ been sincere about the evacuation plans. Set on the panel underneath the steering controls was a clear flap covering a large green button.

 _In case of emergency facility evacuation_ , the large, friendly letters read, _first ensure all passengers are secured, and then activate the Emergency Autopilot_.

"We're in!" Sherry shouted from the back.

The second word was swallowed up by a thunderous scream of metal against metal and stone – long, fleshy, bulbous tentacles had latched onto one of the other shuttles nearby and were slowly dragging it across the floor.

And that recorded monotone came to life again.

" _Detonation sequence will activate in thirty… twenty-nine… twenty-eight_ …"

 _Hope the tunnel's stabilized against seismic disturbances, or this is going to be a very short flight_ , he thought distantly, flipping the cover open.

Praying, he hit the button.

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

Seen from above, it resembled an avalanche.

The first sign that something was wrong came in the form of a shudder that rippled through the foundations of the city like the seismic footprint of an earthquake. But Raccoon City was a modern urban center, with buildings that drew on the combination of the best construction materials science had discovered, combined with building techniques drawn from modern and premodern civilizations across the old Earth, and even a few that colonists had come up with since on every new world humanity had settled. The taller buildings swayed on their foundations, windows creaked, unsecured shelves came crashing down to the floor, but the city held.

Except… an earthquake, once spent, faded back into stillness, at least until the aftershocks came.

In the midst of the trembling, the first buildings began to fall. Not a sideways topple, but straight _down_ , as the ground simply dropped out from beneath them. More followed, as the great sinkhole widened at a dizzying speed, swallowing everything it touched. Most dropped straight down, or tumbled inwards towards the center, but a few at the edges fell outwards, often taking out one or two neighbors as they fell.

Ever so briefly, all was still, as dust swirled in a thick cloudbank over a massive depression that could have swallowed up a goodly sized college campus, lined with rubble and quickly filling up with water as broken mains all around the edge poured out their contents into the depression-

 _Thwump_.

For just a moment, the base of the depression heaved upwards, as though struck from below by an impossible force. Then, with the horrible whistling _shriek_ of built-up pressure suddenly released, chunks of buildings flew upwards in a fountain of water, as fallen rock yielded to a plume of superheated gases, blasting upwards from an explosion deep beneath the destruction.

Then the geyser cut off as the base of the depression slumped back again, and all that remained was the utter destruction of a significant area of Raccoon City's urban center.

Including the Raccoon City Police Department. Umbrella Corp might be somewhat lax on their employee safety protocols, but they had a _draconian_ corporate clean-up policy.

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

Seen from space, the stars were really very striking.

The door behind him opened. "Sherry's asleep," Claire said quietly.

Leon started, abruptly aware that he'd been staring blankly at the viewscreen for… probably ten minutes or more. "You should sleep, too."

"So should _you_ ," Claire said pointedly, with a glare that said she hadn't missed his zoning out, despite the squint that said she was still seeing halos everywhere after the psychic backlash. Leon was pretty sure she was only on her feet out of pure, cussed willpower and the last dregs of adrenaline that just _would not_ let go.

He certainly was.

"I will," he promised, looking down at the data screen he'd settled in front of him. He didn't even remember writing that last sentence or two. And he definitely wasn't sure they made any sense. "I just need to get this finished and sent, first."

Claire's dubious look did not improve as he gave up and just deleted the suspect lines, but there was honest concern underneath. "Can't it wait? You can file the alert from anywhere, right?"

Leon rubbed his forehead, trying to will the building headache away. "Technically? Yeah. But it'll have a lot more credibility if it's sent from in-system. And I want to at least _try_ warning them before anyone's sent to investigate the city." And someone would be sent, probably sooner rather than later. He wasn't certain how an entire _zombie apocalypse_ had managed to fly under the radar, but the collapse of the underground facility – not to mention the explosion of an overclocked fusion engine reactor immediately following it – would have set off the environmental monitors meant to warn of impending natural disasters, at a minimum.

Claire winced at the thought. "Good point," she admitted. "I wouldn't want anyone going down there without hazmat suits. And flamethrowers."

Leon huffed an involuntary laugh. "Pretty much," he admitted, skimming over what he'd already written and trying to decide if it wasn't enough, or if it was _too much_. Dropping an anonymous alert into the system was bad enough. If he immediately launched into talking about _zombies_ , it would get thrown out with all the other crank calls. Meaning he had to walk a fine line between dire enough to inspire appropriate action, and… well, not sounding crazy.

"Do you really think she got away?"

Leon blinked, looking up from the letters that were starting to swim around on the screen again. Claire was resting her hip against the co-pilot's seat, staring out at the diamond-scattered starfield with the same sort of thousand-yard stare that Leon had probably been wearing when she'd walked in.

At least he didn't have to ask which _she_ Claire was referring to. He'd already told her about finding Annette's remains, although he was still holding off on telling Sherry. The kid had crashed and crashed _hard_ once they'd cleared atmosphere. Besides, he still wanted to find someplace with things she could smash first.

"Yeah, I do," he admitted. "She's not the suicidal type. If she hadn't had a plan she was very confident of, I don't think she'd have risked leading Birkin off like that."

For all he knew, Ada might have even _planned_ to split off on her own. After all, if they really wanted to get word out, having two groups aiming for different escape routes would raise the odds of at least one escaping.

 _Or maybe she just didn't want us tagging along once we got off-planet. Having a cop trailing along behind you would be rather awkward for a corporate thief going to meet a client._

Either way, the next time he saw Ada, he was going to thank her. And then give her one _hell_ of an earful about dropping Birkin down practically onto their heads.

 _Seriously. See if I give you the nice shiny shotgun ever again!_

Leon blinked suddenly, and then slowly leaned forward, resting his forehead against the edge of the screen while he tried to figure out if he was laughing or groaning.

"What's… wrong?" Claire asked, sounding rather like she wasn't sure, either.

Huffing, Leon straightened and began fishing through his inner pockets. "Here I am, trying to wring the words out of my brain to convince the planetary defense forces to take this seriously… Ada and I went up to the security center for a _reason_."

Claire stared at the datachip as he pulled it out of his pocket, and then suddenly covered her mouth with both hands, which didn't cover the strained giggling at _all_.

Leon smiled sheepishly. "It's been a long day?" he offered.

She snorted at that, but leaned over his shoulder as he slotted the chip into the reader. "Did you find anything that you think will get their attention?" she asked.

"Not sure," he admitted. "She'd just finished downloading when the alarm started; we didn't exactly have time to discuss what she'd managed to dig up. Still…"

Startled, he leaned forward, the daze of fatigue and _what just happened_ clearing out of his mind with sudden focus. "Hello."

The data was… mostly what he'd expected; a series of nestled folders holding files with incomprehensible strings of numbers and letters for names. But on the very first level, the one that opened as soon as the computer scanned the chip…

Curious, he tapped the text file named _FOR LEON_ , opening it.

 _Leon,_

 _I'm writing this in case we get separated on the way out. If it happens, don't worry about me – I know a bit about getting out of places I should never have been inside in the first place._

 _If you're serious about taking Umbrella and their backers and hackers down… I do not envy you. That's going up against people you couldn't_ pay _me to get anywhere close to – and I'm a woman who doesn't have many limits when money's on the line._

 _Which means you're going to need more than just your evidence here. You're going to need help._

 _As it happens, I did a little job a few years back for some very interesting people. People who are a little_ more _interesting, after hearing what Annette said about Sherry and the Project._

 _Once you get clear, make for Satoyama, out in the Sakishima sector. You'll want to head for a small city in the northern hemisphere called Karakura_ …

* * *

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

* * *

AN: …Take a minute to breathe if you need to.


	8. Sherry's Guide to Managing Mad Scientist

AN: **Warning!** This chapter contains some spoilers about future developments in the Seireitei branch of the Project universe that have not yet been written.

* * *

 **CHAPTER EIGHT**

 **Sherry's Guide to Managing Mad Scientists**

* * *

 _Smack!_

"Ow!" Blue eyes glowered under the brim of the ever-present hat. "Why you…"

Isshin bit back a snicker at the sight of the itty bitty blonde shinigami glowering right back. Awww, so cute!

And even more amusing was the fact that he could feel Benihime's whisper of cool approval of a young cub's stubborn defense-of-pack, despite Kisuke's dismay at having his inspections interrupted. Heh.

Ah well, might as well mix in. "You asked for that, you know," he said mildly, keeping one eye on his other patient, who was sitting on the other examination table watching the whole thing with wary eyes, while nursing a cup of hot cocoa with so much cacao in it that Isshin honestly couldn't recall if he'd even remembered to _add_ cream or sugar. Despite the bitterness, though, the redhead was looking a little better, the pinched look around her eyes easing. Although Isshin was still planning on taking her over to Ryuuken's hospital later. Shinigami brains, he knew – but shinigami were tough. He had no idea if overreaching psychic abilities to that degree could do permanent damage to a normal Quincy. He didn't really want to chance it.

And sometimes the irony _still_ had him shaking his head. All those years of insisting that he wasn't a _doctor_ sort of Doctor, and here he was, with a clinic and regular patients and a schedule and everything.

Although this was one particular bunch of patients that he had absolutely _no_ intentions of trying to schedule separately any time soon. Adorable little Sherry was getting _good_ with those sting-smacks.

And hadn't _that_ been a surprise. They hadn't heard from Kaien's old contact from his Striker days since their escape from Seireitei ten years ago, when Ada Wong had – at an unapologetically exorbitant price – both arranged cover identities for their little crew, and taught Yoruichi and Ryuuken the fine points of doing it themselves the next time. Given that all indications suggested that shinigami would have lifespans that made even modern medical techniques look like snake-oil quackery, and thus they were probably going to be recycling identities every fifty to seventy years.

And then three people had shown up at his door saying she'd sent them. Which, admittedly, was a little terrifying, given what that implied about what Ada had managed to learn about them.

Then again… an _unregistered_ shinigami who had nothing to do with Seireitei or the Project at all. No _way_ was he going to turn them away. Especially when she was accompanied by a Quincy kid half-catatonic from backlash reaction, and a very tired young man wearing a policeman's uniform for a city which rumor painted as very thoroughly _annihilated_ quite recently.

 _:A shame Yoruichi isn't here,:_ Engetsu agreed, with a _:sense:_ to his presence that always made Isshin picture someone propping his chin on Isshin's shoulder to take a look. Despite the fact that his zanpakutou didn't even _have_ a chin. _:She'd probably adopt them all!:_

The whole thought was threaded through with a distinct sense of _:approval:_ and _:good to add to pack:_ , with a twist of _:nyeh-heh-heh…:_ on top. Although Engetsu was keeping it much quieter than normal. Sherry's other didn't seem to have a name yet, and the little one was distinctly shy.

Unless Kisuke so much as looked _almost_ cross-eyed at her friends. Then the stings came out.

Curse Yoruichi and Ryuuken and the _no home videos featuring tentacles_ promise they'd suckered him into.

Kisuke was blinking at him owlishly, now fully thrown out of the haze of physics and calculations he'd worked himself into. "What? Why?"

Claire took another, very deliberate slurp of her chocolate. "Let's just say, we've got some _bad associations_ with people who think of other people as _interesting specimens_." Pale eyes glittered dangerously, silent warning that, headache or no, Sherry wasn't the only one watching Kisuke's every move right now.

Kisuke blinked, apparently suddenly realizing that the young man he'd been staring at was sitting a little too still, with a silent tension that meant that he was on the verge of either bolting for the exit or cutting loose with some very _focused_ violence.

Credit where it was due; the physicist winced in sympathy and stepped back, raising both hands in the air and looping blond tentacles behind his back, the closest thing they'd managed to come up with for "I come in peace" in shinigami body language. "Sorry," he said honestly. "I get… focused. You should see some of the things Isshin and Yoruichi have come up with when they need to pry me away from the computer."

Leon visibly relaxed a bit as Kisuke moved away. "It's… all right," he offered, with a smile that didn't quite make it all the way into his eyes but at least it was _trying_. "We're just… all still a little bit _tense_."

And with good reason, Isshin had to grant. He'd been part of the great escape from Project Tatterdemalion, and some of the things these three had mentioned in their quiet account were _still_ enough to qualify for nightmare fuel in his books. Zombies, almost-Hollow tongue monsters, massive mutants, Umbrella Corp running illegal human experiments with the full cooperation and support of the police chief, and quite possibly higher-ups in the Republic itself…

 _And a couple of those researchers messing with Madsen's Hollow. How the heck did_ that _happen?_

Old Man Yama had been _emphatic_ about not letting any samples off the planet. Not even the vaccine – neither their version nor Mayuri's twisted "improvement." It had been the one thing that even _Kisuke_ couldn't disagree with the old general about. There was a _reason_ they'd stayed on-planet even after the second Great Escape, rather than high-tailing it far out of Yamamoto's possible reach.

And now… not only had it gotten out, but there were _other_ groups out there that had heard about it. And come to collect.

Oooh yeah. He was not going to be sleeping soundly tonight.

Leon cleared his throat, glancing past Kisuke to where Isshin was putting his kit away. "I am curious about why you asked a _physicist_ to look…?"

Fair question. "Medically speaking, there's not much more I can do," Isshin admitted. "It'll probably scar a bit, but that shoulder's healing up about as cleanly as you can hope, which is nothing short of a miracle. Forget the virus – do you know what kind of microbes even normal, healthy people have swimming around in their mouths? It's enough to make me want to give dentists a medal of honor."

The edge of the man's mouth quirked up slightly. "Huh. Well, I've always had a good immune system. I guess it leveled up."

"Thank God for that," Claire said with feeling.

"Well… that's why I called him in," Isshin admitted, letting one of his tentacles poke out from under his absolutely _awesome_ shirt to point at Kisuke. "Because even the best immune system in the whole galaxy shouldn't have saved you."

Sherry blinked, tilting her head a bit to peer at him curiously. "But… Mom vaccinated me. And herself. And vaccines just make your immune system better, right? So how come it works?"

Ack. On the one hand, that was a better grasp of how normal vaccination worked than he'd honestly expected from someone her age. On the other… well, now he was in a fix. Somehow, he really didn't think explaining that she had bits of monsters even scarier than the zombies or the Lickers threaded throughout the genetic code of every single cell in her body was going to go over well.

On the other hand, it might. _I'm scarier than the monsters under my bed_ did have a certain appeal, especially for a kid whose whole world had turned upside down.

Probably best not to go there, though. So… "Well, we call it a vaccine," he prevaricated. "And it _does_ keep you from getting infected, so… it _acts_ like one." After a moment of hesitation, honesty forced him to add, "…Kind of. Mostly."

Kisuke snorted. Loudly. "Kind of, my foot. _Blond_. I still blame you."

"Get in line," Isshin huffed at him. "Yoruichi's _still_ going after me for the purple hair. Honestly, I don't know what she's complaining about. Madarame came out _hot pink_. And he was scary enough even before that."

Claire's eyes were flicking back and forth between them with the intense interest of someone watching a closely tied sports game. But Leon's gaze had settled on Kisuke, carefully waiting until the man happened to glance at him – at which point the young cop raised a very deliberate eyebrow in a silent prompt.

The physicist hesitated for a moment, visibly tempted to keep the old argument going, before shrugging slightly. "The problem is that Madsen's Hollow is too _fast_ for the immune system. Think about it – this is a virus that transforms the entire body, and it only takes an hour before it's irreversible? There's no way a human immune system can keep up with that. Our white blood cells just don't propagate or spread through the body fast enough. It's physically _impossible_."

Leon frowned. "Wait. If the native system can't spread fast enough… how the heck does the _virus_ pull it off?"

Kisuke smirked slightly. "It took us a while to figure that out," he admitted loftily. "But as near as we can tell? It teleports. As individual cells. Moving _inside_ the bloodstream."

Claire had, fortunately, only just raised the mug back up to her lips again; when she started coughing, it sloshed violently, splashing dark chocolate across her shirt and pants, but didn't actually spray everywhere.

Putting it down on the side table with a _clunk_ that splashed a little more, she fixed Kisuke with a hard stare. "That's _impossible_ ," she said flatly.

Kisuke blinked at her, which was amusing. The man hadn't been able to pull off disingenuous even _before_ he'd had a set of tentacles twitching in glee. "Oh?"

"I'm a _Quincy_. Maybe I never pulled off an apport before this mess, but I know the theory! It takes an _incredible_ amount of raw energy to shift physical matter across space – even tiny things! And you _can't_ do it with anything alive!"

Interesting. Sherry had just… twitched, eyes suddenly going wide – as if remembering something she hadn't really thought about before in a new and very different context. "But… you teleported the big gun?" she said tentatively, although something about the way her eyes shifted slightly said she was actually thinking about something else.

Claire winced, rubbing at her temples in memory. Isshin had to sympathize; he remembered the first time Engetsu had cut loose, after Shunsui had pushed him into overriding the mental wall between himself and his temper that Isshin had spent his entire life until that point building up. And _he_ had a shinigami's super-healing to blunt the effects a bit. Ow. "Yes, but that was a _thing_ , Sherry. An inanimate object. If a few molecules got swapped around in the process, it wasn't going to ruin the whole launcher. Living things? Cells? One molecule of DNA out of place and they'd end up nothing but gibberish! Quincies have _tried_ to figure out apporting living things. It… never ends well."

"And yet, the Madsen Hollow virus pulls it off," Kisuke replied. "In fact, it seems to be one of the most resilient parts of the viral structure. The original virus has it. The vaccine has it, and we didn't even know that was how the virus worked when we were developing it. In fact, for this T-virus to work as fast as you say it did, then _it_ must have had the same function somehow. Really, from a scientific standpoint, it's a masterwork of engineering." His eyes glittered slyly. "The aliens who made it knew what they were doing."

 _Hah. And three, two, one…_

Claire blinked. "Aliens, huh?" She paused for a moment. "Have we blown them up yet?"

For just a moment, Kisuke actually gaped at her. Then he turned an almost betrayed look at Leon, who was actually _smiling_.

The cop shrugged his uninjured shoulder. "Honestly? After the zombies and everything, the idea of aliens being behind it all doesn't even seem all that weird," he admitted, eyes sparkling with a hint of mischief.

Cackling at Kisuke's look of disappointment would not be nice, Isshin reminded Engetsu. And himself.

"Besides. I'm still stuck on the idea of _teleporting viral cells_ ," Claire said dryly. "Aliens? Who knows, they could be out there. No proof that they're not, except that we haven't met them yet. Teleportation of living things? We've got a _lot_ of evidence that says it flat-out can't be done without _killing_ them."

"I've… done it. I think?"

"Really?" Isshin asked, keeping his tone light and curious – and adding in a small pulse of _:encouragement:_ , as Claire turned to look at Sherry in surprise.

The girl glanced at him momentarily, clearly startled by the pulse, before looking at Claire and Leon again. "Uh-huh. It was right at the end – down with the shuttles. I was on the ramp, and I realized the big gun could help us fight D… the monster. Only it was way over at the other end and I thought I wouldn't get there in time, but I just… ran really fast, and… one minute I was one place, and then I was _there_ , and… I don't think I actually ran through the space in between?"

Isshin whistled. "You figured out flashstep that quick? It took us a week before Toushirou managed his first."

Although Yoruichi had pulled off something very similar, almost straight out of the chrysalid. Not a full flashstep, she'd still been crossing the intervening space. And… now that he thought about it, they wouldn't have, would they? Down in the Project, everything had been cramped hallways – not exactly enough _room_ for the blink-teleport to be useful. And in the first attack at the Seireitei camp, the distances had been too _far_. The zanpakutou were clever, but when they were running on instinct alone they were very present-moment-focused; they didn't really have a _concept_ of navigating space outside their immediate sensory range, they needed time to grow into that. It hadn't been until that rudely interrupted game of tag that they'd been in a situation where moving from _here_ to _there_ all at once had made intuitive _sense_. Huh.

Leon, meanwhile, had slowly paled, looking from Sherry to Isshin before finally turning his attention back to Kisuke. "Shinigami can teleport," he said slowly.

Kisuke smirked slightly, nodding.

In a tone that said he already knew the answer, Leon asked. "Then, Hollows…?"

"Oh yes. And what a lovely day for everyone when they started playing with _that_ lovely trick. We're lucky they haven't yet figured out how to use it to get off the western continent and the islands – but they are going to, eventually." Kisuke jabbed a finger at the man. "Which is why it's _vital_ we figure out how you managed to somehow _beat the virus_. Because the only way you could have pulled that off was by disabling the teleportation function – and then somehow managing to keep the infection site isolated long enough for that admittedly impressively robust immune system you mentioned to munch it dead…"

 _Smack!_

"Ow!" Twitching reflexively away from the bristling girl, Kisuke rubbed at a distinctly reddened arm as he turned his glower on Isshin. Who wasn't even _trying_ to hide his snicker this time. "Okay, I don't _care_ that her nematocysts haven't developed enough to release the neurotoxin yet – _stings still sting_!"

A moment passed. Then Claire looked straight at Sherry. "Tag him again for that one, kiddo."

Sherry giggled, eyes lighting up with mischief and a distinctly _evil_ smile. "Okay," she said, eyeing Kisuke as, no fool, the physicist backed several prudent steps away.

"Stop encouraging her!" he grumped.

 _:Why? Teaching cub good habits,:_ Benihime opined coolly. _:Threats to pack should be dealt with. Expediently.:_

 _:Agreed,:_ Engetsu echoed, snickering at the burn. Along with a gleeful flash about introducing Sherry to Isshin's lovely, _lovely_ girls. It was never too soon to teach one's daughter's the proper way to deal with idiots, and Ichigo could do with a big sister he could hand over the guardian job to every once in a while.

Not that he would anytime soon. Not after the mess with Masaki and everything that came with it. But it wouldn't hurt to lay the groundwork. Shinigami hunted in packs. Even the best guardian in the world couldn't fight every battle alone.

And… Claire was blinking at them, her head slowly moving back and forth as she looked from Kisuke to Isshin and back. "You're… talking. Aren't you. Electromagnetically?"

Ah. Given how sensitized she was at the moment, it probably wasn't surprising she'd noticed. "Sort of?" Isshin hazarded. "It's a mix of the hair tendrils-"

"Barbels," Kisuke corrected with a slight huff.

Isshin stuck his tongue out at the man. "Technically, yes, and that's what I would put if I were doing a medical report. However, I refuse to go around telling people that my head is covered in _fish whiskers_."

Kisuke huffed and rolled his eyes as he turned away, which Isshin chose to interpret as acquiescence to Isshin's brilliant logic. "Anyway. Between the _hair tendrils_ and the neural density of the tentacles, we're sensitive to a much broader range of frequencies, and have a lot more processing power available to both interpret and encode the pulses. So… yes. We can communicate without talking."

Claire shook her head, finally reaching for her cooling chocolate again. "First teleportation, now telepathy," she said ruefully. "I feel like someone went through a checklist of classic science fantasy tropes. I mean… I've heard of Quincies who could _sort_ of pull off something like that, yes, but I always figured it was just another spaceport legend…"

" _Oh_."

Startled, Isshin looked at Kisuke, who'd gone suddenly very still, studying Leon with a look of utter fascination.

"Oh, _that's_ how you did it," he murmured, the quiet tone belied by the electrical air of _excitement_ radiating from him. "You're a _psychic_."

Leon blinked.

"…I know for a _fact_ that I'm not a Quincy," he said slowly. "And I'm really hoping you're not referring to the people with the weird hats and crystal balls muttering dire predictions about the future."

"Sure you're not a Quincy?" Isshin prodded. "They still haven't figured out a way to detect the latent talent."

Underneath, however, his mind was racing. Because when it came to weird physics, Kisuke was _always_ precise. Unlike some people, he always used _Quincy_ to refer to the descendants of people who'd gotten the Q-C germ line modifications that had resulted in some very unexpected light shows and a Republic that had nearly self-destructed in surprise. _Psychic_ typically referred to…

 _Oh_. Huh.

"Very sure," Leon said dryly. "I'm from Galapagos 2.0 originally – and my family were all from the original colonists."

"Galapag… oh!" Claire blurted. "Now I remember. That was one of the old sleeper-ship colonies, wasn't it? They only joined the Republic _after_ the Republic finalized the laws about transhuman genetic modifications in the Declaration."

Leon nodded, still looking at Kisuke. "So, definitely not a Quincy. And… you knew that, didn't you?"

Kisuke rubbed his hands together. "You might not be a Quincy… but haven't you ever wondered where Quincy powers originally come from?"

"We learned that in school," Sherry replied, eyes narrowed as she watched him closely. "People were experimenting to see if they could make humans adapt to new planets better, right?" She shrugged slightly under the weight of surprised looks. "We had a special lesson on it when some of the boys said nasty things. And Dad…" She faltered, suddenly looking away.

To Kisuke's credit, he didn't say any of the biting things about Sherry's father that he was obviously thinking. Instead, he cleared his throat carefully, settling back as he tucked his hands into the pockets of the loose-fitting green coat he always wore – despite the medical setting, neither of the older shinigami had put on a physician's coat, because they were not _stupid_. The Raccoon City trio were a bit… _twitchy_ when it came to lab coats.

"The real mystery," he explained, "is the source of the powers themselves. After all, _no one_ was expecting that little bombshell to come out of the genetic adaptation project. Though they maybe should have, there was more than enough _magical thinking_ going on inside the basic _idea_ of that whole effort…" Realizing he was going off on a tangent, he shook his head. "Suffice to say, after the Quincy powers showed up, and proved that they could breed true… well, researchers did a _great_ deal of investigation."

"And…?" Leon prompted warily.

Kisuke glanced at Isshin, who raised his eyebrows slightly. He knew the background – they'd banged their heads on the dearth of research together, after all. But he'd been a biologist. Kisuke had been the one trawling through every weird bit of lore he could find in his effort to make mass transport a viable technology.

The blond shook his head slightly, shrugging. "Long story very short? Throughout the known span of human existence, dating back beyond pre-space and into pre- _history_ , there are accounts of people doing things that should be impossible. They might be explained away as mythological demigods or the hysterical accounts of eyewitnesses who _must_ have been exaggerating, but time and time again… There seem to be people who, under _extreme_ duress and desperation – when the chips are down and they _cannot_ afford to lose – manage to glare reality dead in the eyes. And reality blinks. For half a second. Not much – but enough, sometimes, to do what needs to be done. Mothers lifting trees off their children. Older siblings running into burning houses and coming out again with their baby siblings unburned, _after_ the house has collapsed. A soldier making an unplanned dash to a different foxhole despite enemy cover fire, only to look over his shoulder and realize the hole he just left got blown into the sky by an IED." He huffed. "None of which lends itself to any kind of proper scientific investigation, because any trait _that_ subtle, rare, and _situation-dependent_ is absolutely impossible to test for in anything even remotely resembling an ethical manner!"

"And you think I have one of these… pre-Quincy abilities?" Leon asked, his tone caught somewhere between dubious and intrigued.

"Well, it's not like the abilities would have disappeared once Quincies showed up," Isshin pointed out. "Only with Quincies being big and flashy and visible, the idea of plain vanilla humans as low-key psychics kind of fell out of the literature. Even if we still get people with silly hats and crystal balls."

"How would that explain being immune to the T-virus, though?" Claire asked. "If it only works under duress…"

"Stress," Kisuke said succinctly. "First manifestation has a strong influence on how psychic talents develop, and stress can lead to breakthroughs."

Claire looked pointedly at her chocolate. "I never would have guessed," she deadpanned.

Kisuke snorted at that, but shrugged his acknowledgement of the point. "Shinigami talents definitely act that way. Quincies are less prone, what with the early training and all, but you're not the first to come up with a new trick in a pinch, either. It would make sense for native psychic gifts to be the same, given that they manifest situationally." He looked at Leon. "If I were to guess? You were exposed to an invasive biohazard at a young age and…"

Abruptly, his mouth clicked shut as he paled.

 _Why…_ Oh. "Galapagos 2.0?" Isshin asked carefully.

Leon grimaced and nodded. "Our settlement was hit in the first outbreak of Recluse Catarrh," he admitted. "My uncle had to raise me. He wasn't there at the time."

Meaning, Leon had been the only one to walk away.

"…Ow," Isshin said, not bothering to hide his wince. If his estimate was right and Leon was only in his mid-twenties – and that would make sense, if he'd just gotten out of the police academy and landed his first position when this whole mess happened… He would have been younger than Sherry at the time.

From the flicker of _:oops:_ he was getting from Urahara, Kisuke had just added up the pieces on that, too. After a moment's pause, though, he forged onwards, apparently guessing that Leon would prefer facts over sympathy. "That… would have done it, yes. My guess is that, once you were infected, your latent psychic – call it a "knack" – reacted by turning inwards. Maybe you don't have the strength to make pencils float or bend spoons with your brain…" Claire snickered at that. "…but enhancing your body's own defenses? It may be complicated, but it wouldn't take a lot of power. And more importantly, it's something your body _already_ knew how to do. The talent just… turned it up to eleven."

"…oh."

Isshin frowned. That wasn't _nearly_ as enthusiastic as he would have expected for "congratulations, you're psychic!" Especially from someone who'd chosen a fairly dangerous line of work to begin with, and had weathered a _zombie apocalypse_ with something that at least resembled aplomb…

"What's wrong?"

Leon blinked at Sherry for a moment as the girl moved past Kisuke to stand next to the bed he was sitting on, then smiled ruefully. "During the Recluse Catarrh outbreak… the doctors were really excited. I'd survived. That meant I was a starting point on finding a way to help other people survive. And… it did work. They were able to come up with a treatment. But I remember there being a big fuss because things that should have worked didn't. Because for some reason I had an _anomalous reaction_."

Oof. Isshin remembered reading about that. He might have been a mouse-doctor at the time, but since lab mice were generally the front-line soldiers of testing any treatment, he kept his eye on the journals and news-hubs. Which was part of why he'd beaten Kisuke to IDing Retsu's specialty, when a Doctor Unohana had shown up on the roster of relief aid coming to the camp right after the Project had gone down.

 _Huh. Wonder if Leon met her?_ He kind of hoped the guy had. Retsu was awesome, and she'd have had no tolerance for frustrated biomedical researchers who might be tempted to take their frustrations out on a kid who'd somehow managed to pull off by chance what they were trying and failing to recreate by design.

"Ouch," Claire said, pulling Isshin's attention back to the conversation. "If resisting the T-virus comes down to having a chance psychic talent that disables how it spreads…"

Leon made a face. "I don't think you can put that in a vaccine."

"It's still useful information," Isshin pointed out, mind racing. If they could figure out the basic mechanism that let Leon block the teleportation… Kisuke thought big. A shield around Seireitei, for example, to keep Hollows from flash-stepping their way in to create havoc. Or even Isshin's clinic and Kisuke's shop, to keep nosy shinigami from figuring out that there were a couple of escapees hiding out around here. A shield around the _world_ , because Isshin was pretty sure Kisuke still had nightmares of walking into the lab in the project to see the Hollows messing with the prototype mass transporter, and of what might have happened if Isane and Tessai hadn't been there, or if the rest of them had been a minute or two slower.

After a good ten years as a small-town physician, though, Isshin could think of other applications. If individual shinigami could recreate the effect, it might be possible to stop or at least slow the progression of the virus. Meaning that you had that much longer to get at vaccine to the victim, at least.

"But… yeah," he admitted, shoving the thoughts away. The shinigami were _still_ figuring out what they could and couldn't do. And while he'd learned shinigami and mundane medicine by necessity, he hadn't exactly put a lot of time and effort into psychokinetic medical techniques. That was more Unohana's specialty. "There's only so much you can do when step one isn't replicable for the average person."

"What about Quincies?" Claire asked suddenly. "If the immunity stems from a psychic defense… My brother uses his talent mostly to boost his own strength. This wouldn't be all that different, right?"

Ooo. Now that was an interesting thought…

Then Isshin thought back to Unohana's early experiments in psychokinetic healing, and had to wince. "Maaaaybe," he extemporized. "If they were very, very well-trained doctors. And extremely _weak_ Quincies."

Claire blinked. " _Weak_?" she echoed.

Isshin smiled wryly. "Think about it. If Kisuke's right…"

"Oi." Kisuke glowered at him.

"…then it would work because of two things," Isshin forged on, ignoring him. "First, the fact that Leon _isn't_ doing this intentionally. It's a subconscious self-defense reflex. When it comes to keeping your body in one piece, your subconscious tends to know better than your conscious mind. And Quincy abilities _have_ to be directed consciously. Meaning, you'd have to know exactly what you're doing."

"But why a weak talent?" Leon asked curiously.

Isshin had to smirk. For this one, he was on much firmer ground. "Because the immune system isn't so good at dialing down the firepower," he said wryly. "Best defense is a good offense and all that. But add a full Quincy's power to that, and you've got metaphorical nukes getting dropped inside your own bloodstream; you might kill the virus, but there wouldn't be much left by the time you were done. Which means your power needs to be weak enough that the talent itself is restricted purely to defense." He shrugged.

Leon sighed, rubbing at his face. "Then I guess I'm back to Plan A – tracking down the people who broke into Umbrella. Not to mention Umbrella itself… and whoever sent them the virus in the first place.

"You could probably get General Yamamoto to even back you on that one," Isshin admitted. "Which… you might have to. The two of us are mostly trying to keep our heads down and study the heck out of this thing, so we'll be ready when Round Two comes. We're not up to waging war on one of the main corporate powerhouses of the Republic. Or running an investigation."

And… much as Isshin wanted to figure out the nullification trick, honesty forced him to admit it would be far more useful in Seireitei, and Unohana's Section 4 healers.

Leon nodded, looking unsurprised. Well, that made sense. The man had signed up to be a cop. He clearly was _willing_ to skirt the edges of the law if he had to, but working _with_ it was definitely better.

Sherry blinked, looking back and forth from Isshin to Kisuke's thunderous scowl. "But… I thought you didn't like the general guy?"

"Oh? What gave you _that_ idea?" Kisuke asked, sarcasm dripping from every word. "I can't _imagine_ why we would want to stay away from a paranoid, over-controlling old warhorse who wants to treat us as _weapons_ …!"

 _:Shhhh_ , _:_ Isshin soothed – although, really, it was for his own benefit as much as Kisuke's or Sherry's. Engetsu wanted to _slash_ at the memory of _cages, closing in, no options no choices no_ air _…_ "We don't like him," he said flatly. "Especially not after he gave the okay for Mayuri's modification of the vaccine, to make any new shinigami biologically dependent on proprietary nutritional supplements."

Claire's lips thinned even as her eyes widened. "But… that's _slavery_."

"Indentured servitude, _technically_ ," Kisuke spat – but the bristling was easing a bit now. "Which has been part of government and military contracts for _years_ , even if it's under a different name. You barter away five or ten years of your life to military service in exchange for training, support, and a pension. Why _shouldn't_ the government demand your service in exchange for a vaccine that saves you from becoming a monster?"

Leon's eyes glittered dangerously. "You're planning to do something about it," he said cannily.

"We've got a few ideas," Isshin said mildly, and after a moment, the cop nodded silent acceptance of the fact that he wasn't going to be saying any more; if Leon really was planning on going to Seireitei, it would be safer for everyone involved if he didn't know too much. With a slight nod of thanks of his own, Isshin went on. "But we do still have friends there. And… you're immune. The vaccine wouldn't even _work_ on you – I suspect that psychic immunity of yours would be as hostile to it as it was to zombification. So odds are good you'd be treated pretty well. Heck, I think Yamamoto would _welcome_ you."

For that matter, if Yamamoto could get someone on the ground that he could be _sure_ wasn't getting his strings pulled by an alien virus in any way, shape or form, someone who could get _outside_ the walls of Seireitei on a regular basis rather than getting trapped in an increasingly insular mess… maybe the old man would finally lighten _up_ a little bit. As things stood, Yamamoto didn't even trust his own thoughts half the time. And that wasn't good for anyone.

"But I probably shouldn't bring Sherry with me," Leon said. "Unless… wait. Does _she_ need those supplements?"

Isshin was shaking his head even as Claire stiffened in alarm. "One of the first things I checked for. I'll say this for your parents, kid – they knew their stuff. It's not quite the same as the version we've got, but they stomped _that_ problem good."

Sherry looked down, her hand fisting in the sheet as her tentacles pulled in close to her body. "But… I don't have anywhere else to go, either," she said in a small voice. "My grandparents… I don't even know who they are, Mom and Dad never talked about them. And…"

And everyone she knew was dead. Rather horrifically so.

 _:Lonely,:_ her zanpakutou was whispering, a soft shiver in the air. _:Scared._ Hurts _.:_

Well. If he ignored something like that, his beloved wife would _skin him alive_. And their children would probably help. "I've got two little girls," he said casually. "Their brother's pretty good at chasing off any no-goods who look at them cross-eyed, but I bet they'd love to have a big sister to help put him in his place now and then." He winked.

Sherry blinked at him, and glanced down at the fuzzy blonde tentacles wrapped close against her body. "But…"

"Hey now!" He wiggled a tentacle of his own at her, letting Engetsu's amusement pulse gently in the air around them. "What did I say when you guys came in?"

That got a giggle out of her. "No charge for extra limbs!"

"Besides," Leon said. "I'm probably going to be traveling a lot. It shouldn't be hard for me to stop by every now and then to say hello."

Claire nodded. "Same here. We all got out of Raccoon City together, Sherry – we're not going to abandon you."

 _:Relief.:_ Sherry slumped a little, surreptitiously rubbing at her face – and then blinked, looking at Claire again. "So… where are _you_ going?"

Claire rested her hand on the small notepad she'd set on the table next to her, and never allowed out of her reach since. "I still have to find my brother," she said. "In fact, it's even more important now than it was before."

"Oh?" Leon asked, raising his eyebrows.

Claire met the inquisitive look steadily. "Based on this, they _knew_ what was going on in Raccoon City," she said grimly. "Irons, the Lickers, Umbrella… maybe they didn't know all the details, but they knew _enough_." She paused, for just a moment. "And they _left_. So. What was even more important than saving the city? What _else_ did they find out about?"

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

"Your payment has been sent. And may I say, it is a pleasure to work with a professional."

"The data is transmitting. And that's a shame," Ada said coolly. "Because right now, I'm not particularly inclined to ever take another job from you again."

The mild-faced man in the screen blinked, looking surprised and a little wounded, and Ada didn't trust it in the least. She'd dealt with manipulators before. She _was_ one. And she knew her own type.

That was even assuming that the bespectacled man and his wavy, light brown hair even had anything at all to do with whoever was on the other end of the line. It shouldn't have been. He certainly wasn't seeing _her_ real face.

But something told Ada that she _was_ seeing the real man. And that sent all the hairs on the back of her neck up at full attention. The only people who didn't bother with covers were the ones who didn't think they were going to get caught. Which either meant that they were overconfident to the point of suicide…

Or they'd already made arrangements to ensure that they _wouldn't_ get caught. And she had no intention of being on the receiving end of those plans.

"A pity," the man said. "I recently heard some very interesting rumors about monsters emerging in the fringes of the Satrapy."

Hand already moving to cut the connection, Ada froze.

The Satrapy.

Her _home_.

 _…Damn it._

"I'm listening," she said coldly.

There was no way that light, carefree smile was anything but smug. "The name I have heard," he said, "is _Nii_ , a researcher working for the group called Minus Wave…"

~RESIDENTPROJECT~

"This had better be worth it," Yamamoto growled, stalking down the open hallway towards the meeting rooms.

The _paper_ hallway, because they'd all learned their damned lesson after the Hollows had torn through the first camp. Some facilities still had proper, solid walls – the hospital, the cooking areas, the labs, anything that needed extra reinforcement or had anything to do with fire. Everywhere else? They'd ended up reaching all the way back to pre-Space Japan, and had wooden frames walled with sliding paper screens. Everywhere.

It _still_ irked. Mostly because Yamamoto did not _want_ to get used to it. The sheer logistical headache of walls that doubled as doors in all directions…!

On the other hand, when the alternative was to be trapped in a bunch of _lunchboxes_ again… Faugh!

"I wouldn't have notified you unless it was urgent," Ukitake reminded him, keeping pace a respectful half-step behind, where he could guard the general's back without interfering with his draw if the Hollows decided today was a good day to play leap-frog into Seireitei's core. The man's tentacles were tucked neatly underneath the old-fashioned _haori_ – another relic of old Earth brought forward, because new recruits and the civilian yuurei panicked less if the shinigami weren't too obvious about their oddities. But the long white hair was drifting back and forth, listening for any would-be eavesdroppers.

Part of Yamamoto wanted to demand that the man braid that ridiculously long mane, since he couldn't cut it. But he wasn't fool enough to turn down an advance warning system.

Especially when _everyone's_ hair did it. Including his own.

At least he'd gotten to keep the mustache, regulations be damned. He'd _earned_ that thing.

"I asked him to wait here," the captain said after a moment, pausing outside the door – another blasted _paper screen_ – leading to one of their EMP-hardened debriefing rooms.

Scowling, Yamamoto pushed it open – oh, he missed having doors that could _slam_ properly, it was hard to vent stress when you had to _slide_ the damn things and too much force risked jamming them – and stalked through, while Ukitake took up guard outside. If something went wrong inside, the EMP hardening wouldn't hold up against a good strong yell, but a regular conversation couldn't be overheard. Aurally _or_ electromagnetically.

The young man waiting inside stood up as soon as the door opened. Clean-shaven, early twenties… he almost would have passed for a freshly graduated private, except for the mop of dark blond hair, and the distinctly battered, if clean, police uniform.

 _RCPD? Huh. Not a city on Satoyama. The hell?_

"Identify yourself," he barked.

Instead of answering, the young man grabbed the small display screen on the table and turned it to face Yamamoto.

"I'm told," he said levelly, "that this is _your_ problem."

And hit _play_.

* * *

~RESIDENTPROJECT: **END** ~

* * *

AN: _Yuurei_ – Japanese for "ghost." Given the amount of pre-space Japanese canonically floating around, and that eventually someone was going to want a simpler way to talk about non-shinigami vaccinated people other than "minimal reactions" or the like… it seemed possible that some wag would suggest yuurei as an option. Especially given that they've _all_ been erased from the system. (And it makes a good way to link back to Bleach.)

As for Leon having extremely low-grade psychic abilities? Well… part of this fic was inspired by the fact that Leon and Claire were apparently immune to the zombie virus. (Zombies + health bar + first aid kits? Means that being bitten does _not_ infect you, canon.) And yes, apparently the supplemental materials claim that about 10% of the population is resistant – but that doesn't exactly come up in the game. And, really, makes no sense, if the virus is a deliberately designed weapon. Unless it's meant to be a terror weapon, and the 10% survival rate is deliberate, the better for survivors to spread the panic… Add to that the fact that Leon has a number of _remarkable_ Made of Iron moments in later installments – including apparent immunity to at least one other form of the virus! – and… well. This is what I came up with.

…which worked very nicely when Vathara explained her headcanon for how the virus actually worked. Yeep.

It also helps that, by giving Leon that added edge, it makes his inclusion into the wider Project setting a lot more realistic. As I mentioned to a reviewer, part of the mismatch between Resident Evil and Project-verse is that the whole _point_ of Resident Evil 2 is that the main characters are more or less normal people, with no particular superpowers, special training, or special equipment. And yes, as I mentioned earlier, I include Ada in that. But the whole point of Hollows is that they _can't_ be fought by normal human beings with basic weapons, thus the need for shinigami. I didn't want Leon to lose his "fairly normal guy" status, but he needed an added edge. Immunity to the virus, plus the training and equipment that working with the Project would give him, would do a lot to make up the difference.

I made Claire a Quincy for similar reasons, along with the fact that it seemed a reasonable possibility that Chris (a Special Forces officer) would be one. Based on that, I decided to keep her just a standard Quincy who got lucky and avoided being bitten in the first place, in the interests of story balance.

Leon _would_ have to go to Yamamoto, logically. He has neither the training nor the resources to wage a low-grade covert war on a major corporation; this is, to my mind, part of why he ended up agreeing to work as a special agent in canon. (I headdesk over the blackmail backstory. Not that I think it's impossible, because people can be stupid and power trips happen, but why blackmail someone _already_ motivated to do the work voluntarily? Argh.) On top of that, _someone_ needs to inform Yamamoto that he's got a mole in his ranks who sent the vaccine structure out.

Ironically? That may end up mitigating problems with Yamamoto later. One of the drivers of his behavior in the Tatterdemalion setting is his worry that anyone who's taken the vaccine may be a Manchurian Agent… including himself. That's a surefire recipe for paranoia all over the place. With Leon, he has an outsider who can safely come and go from Seireitei _and_ who Yamamoto can be certain is utterly unaffected by any subtle mental manipulation. Meaning Yamamoto has someone who can call him out on what's logical paranoia, and what's an overreaction.

…And yes. Timeline-wise, for Ada to have been the one to create the exiles' new public identities, she's at least fifteen years older than Leon. Given that Vathara has established that life-prolongation treatments are standard in this setting, I don't see this as a problem. Ada always gave me the impression of being older than him, anyway.

For the curious: Sherry's zanpakutou eventually settles on _Ripple_ for a name. And yes, Ichigo is sulky about the Not Fair. How come _she_ gets a normal name while the rest of them get stuck with Archaic Pre-Space Japanese poetry?

Kisuke: "Because she is a sassy little brat who doesn't respect her elders."

Isshin: "And she wasn't born surrounded by online ninja gamers…"


End file.
